


The Sanctity of Canon

by shoeberray



Category: Naruto
Genre: Parody, Reincarnation, Sunagakure - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2018-12-19 17:30:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11902647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shoeberray/pseuds/shoeberray
Summary: A young woman from our world commits suicide and ends up in the Naruto world in a very weird clan.





	1. Chapter 1

Elyse stood at the precipice of her life which, not coincidentally, was an actual precipice. As she gazed down at the craggy terrain below her, she wondered, Do I really want to do this? Maybe life would get better. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as she made it out to be.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket. Slowly, she pulled it out. Who would be calling her at this time? She stared at the caller ID with dismay. It was her job, the part time cashier job at a large corporation discount store that cared more about harassing customers into signing up for the company credit cards than actually letting those customers pay for their items in the checkout lane. Whoever thought the best place to sell credit cards would be the checkout lanes anyways? She hated that. The long lines full of impatient and fussy customers made longer by her obligation to give them sales pitches.

Elyse threw her phone off the edge of the cliff. Soon after, she followed.

When Elyse came to later, she had many questions. Questions like; Why am I still alive? or Who is that enormous person picking me up? The answer to those questions would reveal themselves later on through simple deduction. First, she was still alive because she’d been reincarnated. Second, that enormous person who picked her up was her new father and, no, he was not enormous. Just enormous compared to her new small and fragile baby body.

Not long after finding herself reincarnated, Elyse realized her new parents were strange. For one thing, her dad often had a bit of cloth tied around his forehead with a metal plate in the front. The metal plate had a triforce etched into it. Maybe her new dad was a huge Zelda fan although that didn’t explain why he chose a weird headband to advertise his fandom to the world.

For another thing, her parents were magical. Yes, magical. Those two could move with unprecedented speed. They would crush Olympic records if that speed translated to longer distances than that which was required to run over to stop Elyse from escaping her crib. The speed didn’t even compare to the other things they could do. Sometimes, Elyse saw two to three versions of her mom running around the house, and no, she wasn’t an identical triplet. Elyse saw the other two mom’s appear out of thin air. Her dad liked to disguise himself with his magic making his ears comically big or his nose abnormally large in an attempt to make Elyse laugh. Elyse thought that trick might be more likely to make a normal baby dissolve into tears, but she gave little giggles sometimes to please the man.

It really hadn’t been too hard to accept that her new parents were magical. Not after she had been reincarnated. Strange unexplained things could happen. Who knew?

Elyse’s parents mostly spoke in English, for which she was grateful, but at times, they spoke Japanese which she had almost no knowledge of. Trying to learn the new language by trying to pick out the words they spoke proved to be nothing more than a headache provider. Elyse gave up that endeavor quickly. Her parents spoke English, so that was good enough.

It wasn’t until she turned two and a half that Elyse learned she and her parents had more in common with each other than brown hair and green eyes. Her mom had Elyse in her lap as she showed her a map of the American continents. “That’s where your daddy and I used to live,” she said pointing to the US.

“Where do we live now?” Elyse asked frowning down at the map. She hadn’t been able to make sense of her location. She heard her parents saying at times that they lived somewhere called Sunagakure which sounded pretty Japanese, but she noticed a desert like landscape the few times she’d been outside. Deserts didn’t sound very Japanese like to Elyse, but what did she know? Maybe Japan had some deserts. She never studied Japanese geography.

“We live in Sunagakure in the Land of Wind,” Elyse’s mom answered.

“Where is that?” Elyse asked. Surely, not in the Americas.

Her mom moved the map of the Americas aside and grabbed a new, more unfamiliar looking map. “This is the Land of Wind,” she stated outlining one of the regions on the land mass. “And this is Sunagakure.”

Elyse stared at the dot marking the city. This wasn’t helping. “How far from there?” Elyse pointed a stubby finger at the map her mom had discarded seconds earlier.

“Oh. That’s very far away, Jin.” Elyse made an involuntary face at her new name. Her name was about the only thing she liked about her old life, and she didn’t want a new one. Her mom continued, “See, your daddy and I used to be different people. We lived in a place called America in a completely different world, but we died there. We were reborn into this world.”

Elyse’s brain whirred. Her parents were reincarnated too? This wasn’t even Earth anymore? “Wait, is it common for people to be reincarnated around here? I thought I was the only one!”

Her mom stiffened. “Jin?” Elyse turned to face her new mother who had a stricken expression.

“If I’d known you were in the same situation, I’d have told you earlier,” Elyse said. Her mom carefully deposited Elyse onto the floor, stood up, and started pacing.

“This- this has never happened before,” she said stress permeating her voice.

“What’s never happened before?” Elyse scrunched her brows in confusion. The woman had just said she’d been reincarnated too, so clearly, that had happened before.

Her mom turned to her eyes wide, face frantic. “We’ve never had a reincarnated baby born to a reincarnated parent. I should have known. You caught onto English too quickly and Japanese too slowly. It wasn’t because we spoke English around you more. It’s because you already knew English.”

Elyse looked away starting to feel a little bad for the lady that just found out her child wasn’t entirely her child. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what it’s like to have your two year old turn out to be an adult. I didn’t mean to do it.”

Her mom’s face softened. “Of course, you didn’t, honey. I put my second pair of parents in the same situation though they didn’t know it. I loved them just as much as my first parents too. How old are you really?”

Elyse thought. “I was 23 when I died, so I guess 25 now.”

“I’m still older than you then. I’ve lived a total of 38 years. Haru is 37.” Elyse started at that. The two looked to be in their early twenties. They must have died fairly young. “If you let us, we can still act as your parents in this life. You’ll still be granted all your rights as an adult as is the law in our clan.”

“Clan?” Elyse asked. Who the hell had clans?

“Oh, yes. You have so much to learn. Do you know about Naruto?” The name tickled Elyse’s memory, but she couldn’t quite figure out why. She shook her head.

“No? That makes it a little bit harder. There was an anime and manga back in our original world about a ninja named Naruto. It was pretty popular.”

“Oh!” Elyse cried out suddenly recognizing the name. She saw a couple of episodes of that. “I have heard of that. The annoying, blond kid, right?”

“Yes, that one,” her mom said with a smile.

Elyse frowned. “Wait, why are we talking about an anime now?”

“Because that’s the world we’re in now. This is the very same world that Naruto lives in. Actually, that very Naruto was born not long before you were.”

Elyse stared back at the lady in consternation. She could accept the magical powers. She could accept the reincarnation. She could even accept that the reincarnation was into a totally different world, but the world of an anime? Come on, now. “Wait, you aren’t serious, are you?” Her mom nodded. “We’re in an anime world?” Another nod. “Are you sure about this?”

“I know it’s weird-” Elyse let out a strangled laugh. “-but that’s the reality of it.” The lady was dead serious. Elyse shook her head. The ninja in the show did have those dopey looking headbands her new father sometimes wore, didn’t they? And they had magical powers too.

“Are you sure you aren’t playing a joke on me?” Elyse asked again just to be sure. Her mom shook her head. “Well, then. Isn’t that something?”

“I was quite shocked when I realized it too.”

“So the clans then,” Elyse started. “Is that a Naruto thing? I’m afraid I don’t know very much about the story.”

“Oh, yes. There are ninja clans. They hold secrets, usually about jutsu, in their clans. Our clan’s secret is our reincarnation and knowledge of the future. Reincarnated people around the world find us through the hints we leave, or in some cases, we find them first.”

“What hints?” Elyse asked and then thought again of her father’s headband. “The triforce symbol?”

“Well, yes,” her mom said looking sheepish. “Along with the name of the clan, books we’ve printed, restaurants we set up with dishes from our world, and other such things.”

“What’s the clan name?”

Her mom’s face displayed great reluctance. “Nintendo,” she admitted.

“Nintendo,” Elyse repeated flatly. “Like the game system?”

“Yes.”

“Whose bright idea was that?”

“That would be Fusajiro Yamauchi. No, not the actual Fusajiro Yamauchi, just some guy that used his name when he founded the clan.”

“Excuse me, but who is the actual Fusajiro whatever guy?” Elyse asked having never heard the name before.

“Yamauchi,” her mom emphasized. “He founded the Nintendo company. The Fusajiro of this world who, of course, was also originally from the same world as the actual Fusajiro Yamauchi, had quite the Nintendo obsession. And our clan reaps the consequences to this very day.”

“Why not just change the name?”

“Change the name!? You can’t just change the name of an established clan. Do you know how many council votes we’d have to incite? Or how much paperwork we’d have to fill out? Not worth it. Besides, like I said earlier, it helps to lead others like us to our clan.”

“Ok. I guess that makes sense,” Elyse said uncertainly. “Earlier, you said reincarnated people have never had a reincarnated kid before. Do you guys usually let loose all this information on regular kids?”

“Yes. Little by little all clan kids must know our roots so that they can carry out our clan’s purpose.”

“What purpose is that?” Elyse asked curiously. If it was the clans purpose, that meant it probably would end up being her purpose since she was now a member of said clan.

“To ensure that canon lives on!” her new mom stated emphatically. Elyse gawked at her feeling utterly bewildered.

“To do what?”

Her mom sighed and shook her head. “You really should be learning all this in class. There’s too much for me to tell you in one sitting. Tell you what, we’ll have you enrolled by next week.”

“I have to go back to school?”

“Yes. Everyone in the clan has to go to school to at least learn the rules and duties of the clan. You also have to go if you ever want to learn to use your chakra.”

“My what?” Elyse was starting to feel very overwhelmed with all the information she was being fed.

“Your chakra. It’s a manifestation of your physical and spiritual energy. It’s what allows me to make clones and perform other jutsus,” her mom explained.

“Oh,” Elyse said in understanding. “You mean your magic.”

“It’s not magic, Jin. It’s chakra.”

“It’s Elyse,” Elyse informed her new mom who frowned.

“No. It’s chakra not whatever you just said.”

Elyse slammed her forehead into her palm. “I mean my name is Elyse.”

“Oh.” Suddenly, pain flooded the face of Elyse’s new mom. She felt ashamed. It was just a name. She could have let it go.

“Never mind. Jin is fine,” Elyse said hurriedly. Her mom gave her a wavering smile.

“No, no. Elyse is a beautiful name. You should keep it.” Elyse didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything. Her mom walked over to her and picked her up.

“Let’s put you to bed. Mental adult or not, you need to sleep.”

Feeling like she had already put the woman through enough for the night, Elyse didn’t protest.

The dynamic between Elyse and her new parents was something quite strange from that night on. Sometimes, the two treated her like the toddler she appeared as. Elyse indulged them those times not wanting to deny the two recent parents the chance to act as such. The rest of the time, they remembered she was an adult and left her to her own devices. Elyse’s new parents started to grow on her and she believed they liked her too even if they resented her a little for not being an actual kid.

Elyse’s mom, Eri, enrolled Elyse in the class she mentioned in their previous conversation. Only three other kids took the same class each physically older than her but none reincarnated. They didn’t interact with Elyse because she was too young. In turn, she didn’t interact with them because they were too young.

In her new class, Elyse learned about the history of the Naruto world and what was expected to happen in the future. As the teacher covered a segment on the massacre of a clan in the village of the protagonist, Elyse raised her hand. “Why don’t we do something to stop the massacre if we know it’s coming?” she asked after the teacher, Mr. Peterson as he liked to be called, called on her.

Mr. Peterson opened and closed his mouth like a fish before pointing to a sentence that had been on the top of the board since the first class Elyse went to. “What does that say?” he demanded.

“The sanctity of canon must be preserved,” Elyse quoted boredly. “But why? It seems like we could save a bunch of people if we ignore canon altogether.”

“Ignore canon altogether?” Mr. Peterson spluttered. “Do you realize what you’re saying? If we change events, we run the risk of allowing the world to be destroyed when the more formidable enemies of the story come into play. We have to keep everything the same so Naruto saves the world when the time comes.”

“Still, though,” Elyse said. “It can’t be right to let a massacre of an entire clan happen right under our noses.”

“It’s not right under our noses. It’s in another village, and it’s a necessity. That clan plans a coup on their village. Who knows what characters could die in the fighting that would inevitably follow? No, the clan has to be killed to stop the coup,” said Mr. Peterson with a tone of finality.

“Does it though? I find it hard to believe that the correct solution to any problem is genocide.”

“Miss Suzuki, I don’t think you’re getting the concept. What does that sentence say?” Again, Mr. Peterson pointed to the sentence on the top of the board.

“The sanctity of canon must be preserved,” Elyse repeated dully.

“Yes, yes.” Mr. Peterson nodded enthusiastically. “Do you understand now?”

“Absolutely,” Elyse said with a fake smile. “We must keep canon alive to allow Naruto to save the world.”

“Yes. Thank you, Miss Suzuki. We must do exactly that. Now, where was I? Ah, yes. Sasuke Uchiha. Itachi just couldn’t bring himself to allow his younger brother to be murdered along with the clan.” As Mr. Peterson droned on, Elyse smiled a real smile down at the blank page provided to her for notes. She would make something of her life this time. She had a new purpose, one that went completely opposite of the Nintendo clan’s stated purpose. She would destroy canon so completely that this world wouldn’t be recognizable to any more reincarnated persons.

“You have to learn Japanese if you want to be able to interact with anyone outside of the clan, Elyse,” Eri told her after Elyse stared blankly back at her when she said something to Elyse in Japanese. Elyse had no skills with languages as she learned in her high school Spanish classes. She would have told Eri that she had no desire to talk with people outside of the clan, but she would have to in order to carry out her new self-appointed destiny.

“Alright. I’m ready to learn,” said Elyse with determination. She could learn a new language. People did it all the time. The toddlers in the clan were almost all at least bilingual. Everyone in the clan spoke Japanese, almost everyone spoke English, and a small scattering of other languages diffused throughout the clan.

“Good. I’ll set you up with another teacher.”

“You’re not going to teach me?”

“Elyse, I’m not a teacher. Don’t worry. Mitsuko Uchiha is an excellent teacher,” Eri reassured.

“Wait,” Elyse said the name ringing a thousand bells. “Isn’t Uchiha the name of the clan that gets massacred?”

Eri looked down sadly. “Yes. Such a sad affair. Mitsuko is lucky she had knowledge from the manga and knew to escape before she can get killed.”

“But I thought canon must be preserved. Doesn’t that mean we have to let Mitsuko die with the rest of the Uchiha?” Elyse asked sardonically.

“Elyse,” Eri gasped in appallment. “How can you say such a thing? Mitsuko is a much beloved member of our clan. It’s not going to change canon if one more Uchiha lives past the massacre.”

“Never mind. Sorry.” Elyse let the matter drop. She had to let the rest of the clan believe she valued canon as much as they did.

As it turned out, Mitsuko was an absolute peach of a lady and had a variety of gripping stories from both her old life and her new life. Her old age, 83 when she died and 50 now, provided her with all kinds of opportunities. Elyse listened in awe as Mitsuko described fighting a dozen giant, dancing cockroaches on one of her genin missions.

“And I said to myself, ‘Mitsuko, you’ve seen a lot of things in your 96 years of life, and this has to be the most disturbing thing yet, but you have to pull through if you want to save Hana.’ I reached inside of myself to find the courage residing in the depths of my soul, and I rushed at those cockroaches kunai ablazing. I made quick work of those repellant but surprisingly talented pests, and I rescued Hana from the Cloud ninja. The ungrateful brat didn’t talk to me for a year after that too. Apparently, I’d been cruel to kill the cockroaches. The Aburame don’t take bug abuse lightly.”

“Wow,” Elyse breathed as Mitsuko finished her story. “I just have one question.”

“Let me guess, you want to know why the cockroaches were dancing. I don’t know the answer to that. That very question has haunted me ever since that day.” Mitsuko looked off into the distance with a troubled expression.

“Um, not exactly. Actually, I wanted to know how in the world you were familiar with the Naruto manga if you were 83 when you died.”

“What? You don’t think an old woman can read manga?” Mitsuko barked.

“Well, I suppose you can…” Elyse trailed off as Mitsuko erupted into laughter.

“I’m just screwing with you, child. Of course, I never read the thing, but my sweet grandson loved the story. Talked about it all the time. Until his abusive mother burned his manga collection in a drunken rage, that is. He never showed much of an interest in the story after that.”

Once again, Elyse found herself hard pressed to find anything to say. “You’re daughter-in-law?” she asked.

“I wish.” Mitsuko sighed. “Nope, she was my daughter. I eventually got custody of Hiro when my daughter was ruled to be an unfit mother, but I always wondered if that was a mistake. If my daughter turned out to be such a mess, how could I be expected to raise another child successfully. Hiro turned out well-adjusted though. Either I got better at raising children or Ayumi really was just a bad seed.”

Elyse started at the Japanese sounding names. “Are you originally from Japan?”

“Yes, I am. And that reminds me, this is supposed to be a Japanese lesson not an old lady rambling about her life session.”

“I was fine with the latter,” Elyse said. Nevertheless, Mitsuko continued on with the Japanese lesson for the rest of the day. Elyse supposed that was for the best. She needed to learn Japanese, and she could listen to more stories some other times.

Learning Japanese was easier for Elyse than learning Spanish had been probably purely due to her immersion into a group of people that often spoke Japanese. Mitsuko decided that she would still tell Elyse stories, but only in Japanese. Elyse desperately tried to hang onto every word, but Mitsuko had no mercy in her renditions of her life experiences. She didn’t simplify her language to words Elyse had familiarity with, and she didn’t speak slowly for Elyse to have time to process each sound. The real learning happened during the lessons. Mitsuko just told stories to tease and entice Elyse. Damn it if it didn’t work all too well.

“Hold on,” Elyse said in the middle of one of Mitsuko’s gems. “Is this another tale involving dancing cockroaches or did I mishear something?”

“That’s not how this works, Elyse,” Mitsuko said with a gentle smile. She then launched back into her story. Oh. Elyse got it now. There weren’t more dancing cockroaches. Mitsuko was just referencing the courage she found within herself during that time. Thank God. Elyse didn’t think she could believe it if Mitsuko crossed paths with dancing cockroaches more than one time, and she desperately wanted to believe every word of Mitsuko’s stories.

“Did you ever have kids in this world?” Elyse asked after her lessons ended for the day.

“Goodness, no,” Mitsuko said. “With my failure rate of 50%, I figured I better not.”

“I don’t think you can consider that percentage reliable with such a small sample size. That’d be like if someone took Kershaw’s ERA in the postseason and declared him a bad pitcher because of it,” Elyse said shaking her head at the absurdity of it.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Well, Kershaw is the best pitcher in baseball, or at least he was last time I lived on Earth. Anyways, he’s ridiculously good, but he either has poor luck in the playoffs or pitches worse then for some reason. Either way, a person would look pretty silly if they looked only at Kershaw’s playoff stats before making a decision about what kind of a pitcher he is. You just shouldn’t make assumptions from small sample sizes.”

“Maybe not, but I think in my case it was safer to err on the side of not irreparably damaging a young child,” Mitsuko pointed out.

“Fair enough,” Elyse allowed. “I just can’t imagine you being anything other than a wonderful mother. I wish my mother was like you. My first mother, I mean. I like Eri.”

“I’m flattered,” Mitsuko said patting Elyse on the head. “But I’m still not telling you any stories in English. You need the motive to learn Japanese.”

“Dang.” Elyse snapped her fingers. She hadn’t said what she said to suck up to Mitsuko, but she didn’t defend herself. Mitsuko already knew Elyse really meant what she said.

Elyse didn’t enjoy her Naruto history classes nearly as much as she enjoyed her Japanese classes. The material was much more intriguing, but the teacher had nothing on Mitsuko. Mr. Peterson didn’t have any interesting life stories to tell his class, and he absolutely abhorred class participation. The classroom was his time to ramble on as he pleased, and he didn’t need any kids, reincarnated or otherwise, to disrupt his teachings.

“Yes, Miss Suzuki?” Mr. Peterson asked reluctantly when Elyse raised her hand. No matter how much he hated interruptions, he always called on her when she raised her hand. Elyse supposed she had to give him credit for that.

“Um, I don’t really understand the Hyuga thing. Is the main branch of the Hyuga really practicing slavery under the guise of protecting the secret of the byakugan?”

“Yes, Miss Suzuki. That is exactly what they are doing.” Glad that that was over with, Mr. Peterson started to move on with his lecture. Elyse raised her hand again. “Yes, Miss Suzuki?”

“I just don’t get how they get away with it. Is slavery completely legal in Konoha? If I moved over there and brought over a slave with me, would that be allowed? Or do the Hyuga get a special exception?”

“Slavery is illegal in Konoha. The Konoha council doesn’t recognize the use of the curse seal as slavery.” Mr. Peterson could tell this wasn’t going to be an easily dropped subject. He wished he was rude enough to ignore a raised hand.

“How do they not recognize it as slavery?” Elyse exploded. “How could it be anything but? If I went around forcing someone to my will through torture on a consistent basis, you’d consider that slavery. That’s exactly what the curse seal is.”

“Yes, but the branch members are allowed to follow their own pursuits in life so long as they protect the main members when needed. It’s not quite the same as slavery the way you’re thinking of it.”

“So it’s more of a conditional slavery,” Elyse stated sarcastically.

“Miss Suzuki, I don’t approve of the Hyuga curse seal anymore than you do, but it’s not something I have control over. That is in the hands of the Hyuga clan and very slightly the Konoha council,” Mr. Peterson said in the hopes that was the end of the conversation. Elyse did end the conversation there, but only because she couldn’t hold her tongue for much longer. Even if Mr. Peterson could do something about the curse seal, Elyse knew he wouldn’t. Doing so fell under the category of messing with canon, the only sin Mr. Peterson spoke against with any conviction.

Another time, Elyse raised her hand during Mr. Peterson’s long drawn out description of the Kyuubi’s conversion to the light side. “Yes, Miss Suzuki?” Mr. Peterson asked dutifully.

“I’m sorry, but how does every single bad guy end up redeemed? I let it go with Gaara even though it doesn’t seem particularly likely that a sociopath with a lust for blood would have such a quick turn around. I let it go with Sasori even though it doesn’t seem particularly likely that a sociopath with a lust for blood would have such a quick turn around. Hell, I even let it go with Pein even though it doesn’t seem likely that he stopped his long awaited plan to end the world due to the words of some random 16 year old kid. But I just can’t allow Naruto getting the nine-tailed beast to help him out. It’s preposterous!”

“Thank you for your contribution to the discussion, Miss Suzuki,” Mr. Peterson said through gritted teeth. “But I can assure you that this is indeed what happens. Naruto is a very convincing boy.”

“So it seems,” Elyse said. She felt like banging her head against a desk. “An amazing skill indeed. We should all strive to be so similarly skilled. We could make a killing in negotiations.”

After that lesson, one of the boys in her class approached her. “You’re reincarnated, right?” he asked shyly.

“Yeah,” Elyse answered shortly. She wasn’t particularly interested in conversing with a six year old kid.

“So is my mom,” he said. The two stared at each other in silence for a while. Just as Elyse decided to get a move on, the boy spoke again. “Did you read the Naruto manga in your previous life? Mom says she didn’t.”

“No. That’s why I’m going to this class. To learn about it now.” Did this kid have a point?

“Aw, too bad. Naruto is so cool. I wish I could be like Naruto.”

“You mean unimpressive compared to almost every other ninja in the story yet still able to come out on top through sheer determination of will and the free use of the magic - excuse me - chakra of the nine-tailed beast?”

“N-no,” the boy stuttered. “I mean protecting his friends and family.”

“Oh, that. Yeah, that’s good. Tell me, do you love your family and friends?”

The boy nodded vehemently. “Of course!”

“And would you do anything to protect them?” Another nod. “Then, congratulations. You’re like Naruto. Well done.”

“Wow,” the kid said lighting up like foxfire at nighttime. “Thanks, Elyse!”

“Sure,” Elyse said after the boy already ran off. “No problem, kid.”

Something Elyse noticed about many members of the clan was that a lot of them formed some sort of fandoms for the characters of the Naruto series. A whole section of the clan loved Naruto, another section loved Shikamaru, and so on. Some members of the clan loved everything and everyone mentioned in the Naruto series. Except Sakura. The amount of vitriol these people held for the poor girl was incredible. Elyse couldn’t imagine hating anyone not an unapologetic serial killer as much as these people hated Sakura. Elyse decided then and there that if she ever met Sakura, she’d make that girl her best friend. And talk some sense into her about Sasuke because come on, already. If a guy tries to kill you, he’s probably not interested, and you really shouldn’t be interested in him either. Elyse needed to ruin canon to stop that disastrous relationship from happening if nothing else.

One day, Elyse spotted a rare Sakura fan in the wild. The girl stood her ground against two Sakura haters pointing out all the good she saw in the pink haired ninja.

“She has a good heart,” the girl said desperately.

“But she’s useless.” An older girl drawled out the last word with disdain. “What has she ever done?”

“She beat Sasori-”

“That was mostly Chiyo,” a boy interrupted.

“But she learned medical ninjutsu from Tsunade. She must have helped heal an inordinate amount of ninja. We just don’t see that kind of stuff in the series because it’s not particularly interesting to read about.”

“She stayed obsessed with Sasuke even though he treated her horribly and went against pretty much everything she stood for and everyone she cared for,” the older girl put in.

“That’s… Well, that’s completely true,” the Sakura fan admitted. “But that’s just one glaring fault. I know she didn’t take on any S rank ninja on her own or anything, but they can’t all have demon chakra or dimension defying eye abilities.”

“She didn’t take on any ninja S rank or not,” the boy said.

“Not in the story,” Elyse interrupted stepping into the argument. “She exists outside of the story, you know. I’m sure she had to take on other ninja to reach chunin level, and then had to take on more in missions.”

The Sakura fan turned to Elyse with awe in her eyes. “I’m Diane. Who are you?”

“Elyse,” Elyse answered as the older girl and boy left muttering about delusion Sakura lovers. “Diane’s not a Japanese name. Are you reincarnated as well?”

Diane shook her head rapidly. “No. Mom and dad just wanted to name me Diane.” Fair enough.

“Pity. It’s hard to meet people around my age that have been reincarnated.”

“Can I still be your friend?” Diane asked with wide eyes.

Elyse didn’t have the heart to refuse. “Sure, why not?” Friends didn’t have to interact with each other, did they?

From that day forward, Diane latched onto Elyse at every possible opportunity. Elyse greatly regretted her decision to agree to a friendship with the girl. The girl was adorable and sweet, but the way she nattered on about the Naruto story grinded at Elyse’s nerves. This whole clan had an unhealthy obsession with the thing. Even her parents held an amount of reverence in their voice when speaking of the series.

As Elyse found out at some point, Eri and Haru both had some amount of interest in the Naruto series before getting reincarnated into the world. Eri avidly read the manga in her youth while Haru was a casual anime watcher. “Until Shippuden,” he said. “I just couldn’t stand all the filler anymore.”

Eri nodded beside her husband. “I stopped when Pein came around. The powers the ninja’s had just got too ridiculous for my liking.”

It was during that time, that Elyse realized every reincarnated person she talked to lived after the first Naruto manga was released. Even Mitsuko, born 47 years prior in this world, knew about Naruto from her old world. Fusajiro Yamauchi, not the founder of the Nintendo company, clearly knew about the series, and he was born into the world more than 100 years ago. None of it made any sense.

On that note, nothing about Fusajiro Yamauchi made much sense. The reincarnated Fusajiro Yamauchi, not the other one. When Mr. Peterson wasn’t prattling on about canon events and the importance of that being upkept, he told the history of Fusajiro Yamauchi, the reincarnated one, and the Nintendo clan. “Fusajiro Yamauchi was born outside of the Elemental Nations,” Mr. Peterson started and then stopped when the bane of his existence raised her hand. He would refuse to teach anymore reincarnated children. “Yes, Miss Suzuki?”

“The sequel or the original?”

Mr. Peterson furrowed his brows unable to make any sense out of the question. “What?” he asked unintelligently.

“Was it the Fusajiro Yamauchi that founded the Nintendo company or the Fusajiro Yamauchi that founded the Nintendo clan?” Elyse asked with a mischievous smile on her face.

“The Fusajiro Yamauchi that founded the Nintendo clan.” Mr. Peterson wiped at his face tiredly. “The founder of Nintendo the company couldn’t have been born in the Elemental Nations since he was only born on Earth.”

“So that means he was born outside of the Elemental Nations, and you could have been talking about him in your original statement,” Elyse pointed out deviously. One day, she’d leave Mr. Peterson to lecture the class in peace.

“Technically, yes, but context matters, as you know well. Now, back to the lesson. Fusajiro Yamauchi, the sequel, was born outside of the Elemental Nations and it took him a while to figure out he lived in the Naruto world. Once he did figure it out, he trekked to the Elemental Nations by himself at the young physical age of 14. What now, Miss Suzuki?”

Elyse frowned. She had a real question this time. Maybe she should stop crying wolf. “How do we know all this if no one knows who Fusajiro was before he founded the Nintendo clan?”

“It’s in his memoirs.”

“He has memoirs?” Why had Elyse never heard of those?

“Yes. We keep them in restricted section of the clan library.”

“We have a restricted section? Can I find Moste Potente Potions in there?”

“No, just deeper details of our clan’s history and some secret techniques clan members created,” Mr. Peterson said. “And before you ask, no, you cannot go into the restricted section. Not until you make genin.”

Mr. Peterson picked his lecture back up. Fusajiro Yamauchi the sequel found out he wasn’t the only reincarnated person in the world when he came across a hotel in the outskirts of the Land of Wind. The owner of the hotel, a woman by the name of Naka Osahu, named her hotel The Hilton. That was what drew Fusajiro to the hotel. With the help of Naka, Fusajiro set out to find other reincarnated souls out of a sense of nostalgia for his old life. Under Fusajiro’s leadership, Naka and four other reincarnated people they managed to find founded the Nintendo clan with the goal of ensuring canon events happened.

Originally, the Nintendo clan resided in the dumpy village on the outskirts where The Hilton was located. As the clan grew, the village gained prosperity through tourist attractions made by the six members of the clan. One of the men started a Mexican restaurant that gained notoriety when the Daimyo visited the restaurant and sang its praises to his people. Another one of the men in the clan learned how to use earth nature chakra to create beautiful sculptures into the land. He would later be offered a ton of money to sculpt the faces of the Hokages into the mountain in Konoha but have to refuse due to the clan’s purported purpose.

As the popularity of the village grew, so did knowledge of the existence of the Nintendo clan. More reincarnated people found their way to the clan which grew to a sizable enough amount that the Kazekage started to take notice. The Kazekage couldn’t have a powerful clan growing in some rural village of his land. All powerful ninja belonged in Suna serving the interests of the hidden village. He sent a messenger to the Nintendo clan offering a compound and the protection a hidden village would provide to the clan.

At first, the clan refused the offer realizing that joining one of the prominent villages in the story seemed a little too much like changing canon. Fusajiro argued that joining the village would give the clan more access to information about the going ons in the world allowing the clan to act on any possible threats to canon. Eventually, the Nintendo clan agreed to join Suna so long as they were allowed to keep the triforce symbol rather than adopting the traditional Suna hourglass. They needed to advertise their existence, after all.

Elyse thought the whole thing preposterous. For someone so set on preserving the ‘sanctity of canon’, Fusajiro sure jumped at the first chance he got to insert himself into canon. How could moving a new clan into one of the main hidden villages not change canon? But so far everything proceeded as expected. Maybe Fusajiro’s actions weren’t as contradictory as they seemed. Elyse really wanted to get ahold of the guy’s memoirs in the restricted section.

“When can I become a genin?” Elyse asked her new parents.

“You have to take classes at the Suna academy in order to become a ninja,” Eri informed her. “The leaders of the clan won’t allow you to go out on your own in the village until you ace the test on the history of Naruto and the importance of upholding the clan’s purpose. Plus, you still have a ways to go with your Japanese.”

“I have to go to class with regular people? Why can’t I just learn what I need to know here?”

“Because genin is a rank given to us by the Suna leadership. You have to follow the proper steps to achieve that rank and that includes graduating at the academy. Don’t worry. Haru and I will help teach you how to manage your chakra in the meantime.” Haru nodded along with Eri’s words.

“And I’ll teach you my own unique jutsu when you graduate. That jutsu got me my jonin rank,” Haru said proudly. Elyse perked up in excitement.

“What’s the jutsu?”

“I can’t tell you yet. Not until you graduate.” Elyse didn’t understand why she couldn’t just be told now, but she nodded anyways. She was just happy Haru was willing to pass on his jutsu to her. Sometimes, she doubted that the two completely thought of her as part of the family.

When Eri announced her pregnancy a few months after Elyse turned three, her doubts multiplied tenfold. Maybe Eri and Haru would be content with their new real baby and wouldn’t want to deal with Elyse anymore. She didn’t bring up her fears to them for she didn’t want to bother them. She tried not to be too much of a nuisance to the couple that more than they bargained for with Elyse’s birth.

“Nonsense,” Mitsuko said when Elyse brought up her fears to the woman. “Eri and Haru love you. Whether you used to have another life or not, those two cared for you as a baby and watched you grow and learn about your new world. You’re still their child even if your mental age is a little closer to theirs than usual children, and as their child, they love you. I still love Ayumi even after everything she did in adulthood. That’s the curse of being a parent. Loving your child even if they don’t deserve it. And you deserve that love, Elyse, so don’t think that your parents could possibly not love you.”

“That’s a nice sentiment and all, but I can assure you that my first parents did not love me.” Elyse knew it to be true. Her mother practically said as much, and her father hadn’t talked to her in ten years before she committed suicide.

“And your first parents were horrible people. Eri and Haru are not.”

Elyse smiled feeling better but still a little uncertain. Twenty-three years of having uncaring parents gave her misgivings about receiving love from parent figures.

Elyse decided to change the subject. “Hey, do you have the Mangekyou?”

The muscles in Mitsuko’s face tensed and she spoke stiffly. “I don’t even have the sharingan.”

Elyse blinked in confusion. “What about those stories you told me where you used the sharingan?”

“I used to have it. I don’t anymore.”

Judging by Mitsuko’s expression, the story behind that was too personal. Elyse quickly dropped the subject.

Nine months later, Eri had a baby boy, Haru named him Kei. The two new parents and Elyse tried to determine if the baby was also reincarnated but didn’t know how to figure that out.

“He doesn’t seem particularly intelligent,” Elyse said as her brother chewed on the ear of his teddy bear. Two defensive parents turned towards her with offense.

Elyse could have worded that better. “I mean, for a baby, he’s quite intelligent,” Elyse lied. To her, Kei didn’t seem any more intelligent than any other baby. “But he’s not adult intelligent.”

Eri and Haru nodded now that Elyse corrected the slight against their child. “I guess we have a regular baby on our hands,” Haru said reaching into the crib to poke his son’s cheek. Elyse started to shrink away. Her parents had a real baby now. Eri reached out placing her hand on Elyse’s back.

“Do you want to hold your brother?” she asked kindly. Elyse nodded hesitantly. Haru picked up Kei and placed him carefully in Elyse’s arms. As Elyse stared at the drooling, unimpressive baby, she felt lighter than she had in years. This was what family felt like.

When Elyse first started making criticisms about the Naruto series, her friends and family nodded along agreeing that her complaints were valid. Lately, though, she noticed a sort of weariness anytime she poked at what she saw as a hole in the story. “You’re nitpicking too much,” said Diane, who may not have been reincarnated but was mature beyond her years being only three years older than Elyse. “Stop being so critical of the story. Write your own Naruto if you’re so sure you can do better.”

“Maybe I will,” Elyse mused. “I’ll write my own Naruto with blackjack and hookers.”

“What?”

“Never mind that,” Elyse said hastily. “You’re too young for that comment to be appropriate and too not reincarnated to get the reference. Please, forget I said anything.”

Diane narrowed her eyes. “You always do that. Just because you’re reincarnated doesn’t mean you can treat me like a little kid. You’re younger than me.”

Age was very strange in the Nintendo clan. One could go mad trying to figure out who was younger or older, or whether to treat someone like their physical age or their mental age. Most people settled for a perfect blend of both. Elyse got adult conversations and received the same treatment by clan law as all other adults, but she also got patronizing pats on the head and scolded like a child when she acted rowdy.

Elyse and Diane started going to the Suna ninja academy at the same time. Elyse hated it. She had classes on Japanese reading and writing something Mitsuko already covered for her. She had classes on simple math she already learned a thousand times over in her past life. She had classes on history most of which Mr. Peterson already covered to some degree. The taijutsu classes were the worst. There was nothing like fighting a bunch of children to make a person feel like a cretin. Still, a few of the classes caught her attention.

The class on ninja politics and law carried a lot of valuable information if nothing else. Elyse loved to hear about the strange laws brought about by chakra too. For example, in Suna, one could get arrested for vandalism if they imprinted their chakra signature onto any of the private properties in the city. That didn’t even begin to cover the weirdest of the laws. Water jutsu was illegal in Suna because it wasted a scarce and valuable resource in the desert. Restaurants in the village weren’t allowed to serve food or drink because the courts received too many cases of poisonings. Instead, people brought their own meals to restaurants, the restaurants just serving as a social setting. Clan compounds were an exception to that rule since poisonings were much less common among clan members.

Another class that vaguely piqued Elyse’s interest was her weapons class. She found she had a knack for throwing kunai, something she took pride in since her past life didn’t give her any advantage in that.

Chakra control classes made Elyse’s every day. Whether she called it chakra or not, it was tantamount to magic in Elyse’s mind. What person wouldn’t get excited about learning to use magic? Elyse struggled with her chakra, at first, putting her behind the other kids in that particular area. The more she practiced the easier it got.

The other kids in the class all seemed either afraid of Elyse and Diane or overly curious. The Nintendo clan was a huge mystery to outsiders. To everyone else, the clan appeared to take people from their homes and induct them into the clan purely by whim. In reality, those people approached the clan on their own recognizing something from Earth in the clan. Elyse could tell that some of these children heard horror stories about the Nintendo clan from their parents and feared they would be abducted by the Nintendo members of their class.

Only, one boy dared to approach Elyse and Diane. Isamu was a tall boy about Diane’s age with blonde hair and brown eyes. “What does the symbol on your clan’s headbands mean?” the boy asked as he stood directly in front of Diane and Elyse.

Elyse and Diane exchanged looks due to this unexpected situation. “It’s, uh, supposed to represent wisdom, courage, and power,” Elyse said digging into her memories of Zelda. “Each triangle stands for one of those.” Diane’s face twisted into surprise before she schooled herself. She probably thought Elyse made that whole thing up. Diane was savvy enough to know that the symbol represented a game from the other world, yet Elyse doubted she knew much more than that.

“Oh,” the boy said looking a little disappointed at the answer. He stared thoughtfully at the ground for a while before looking back up at Elyse. “Do you know where Europe is?” he asked in English with an Irish accent.

“Oh my God,” Diane squealed also in English. Elyse put her hand over Diane’s mouth.

“Remember protocol,” she whispered. Louder, in Japanese, she asked, “Isamu, would you like to come over to our compound after school?”

“Yes, thank you,” Isamu responded.

A big fuss was made over Isamu’s arrival to the Nintendo compound. The poor guy was bombarded with questions and offers of living arrangements. Luckily for everyone involved, Isamu was an orphan, a fact that made his transition into the Nintendo compound much easier. Had he had parents, the clan would have had to explain themselves to the parents and invite them too.

Isamu lived in Ireland previous to his reincarnation as made obvious by his heavy Irish accent. He died at the age of 31 in a car crash. Isamu loved to talk about his past life, but no one liked to hear it. His stories were the most boring stories in existence. Not only did his life consist of absolutely nothing interesting, he also failed to tell his stories with any kind of talent. His tone, bland and expressionless, made his already boring stories the dread of the village. Elyse swore he could even make Mitsuko’s adventures sound like tales about watching paint dry.

When he wasn’t trying to force his stories into the brains of his companions, Isamu was a joy to be around. He told excellent jokes which kind of contradicted his failed attempts at spinning yarn. How could one master language in joke telling while also failing completely at the aspect of storytelling? Elyse was impressed. Isamu also made a lot of games. He had a knack for inventing board games that were both challenging and fun. Elyse decided Isamu was allowed to hang around her and Diane.

The looks the other kids in class gave the three of them after Isamu joined the clan increased in fear and suspicion. Elyse wanted to push Isamu towards them and yell, “Look! He’s fine! Stop freaking out over nothing!” She said nothing. What some random kids thought didn’t matter.


	2. Chapter 2

Elyse settled into her life over the years. She took care of her brother, Kei, when her parents needed the help. She spent time with her strange friends, Diane and Isamu. She visited Mitsuko to needle more stories out of the woman. She trained with her parents. Eri taught her weapon mastery and taijutsu. Haru taught her how to use her chakra to be stealthy. The Nintendo clan specialized in stealth and speed. It was important to have both to keep all their secrets hidden. Elyse was truly happy for the first time in what felt like forever.

At the physical age of eight, Elyse passed the graduation exam along with her two friends. Not even the lackluster congratulations from the sensei could drag her mood down. “You all pass,” the teacher said tiredly to the kids left in the room after he kicked half of them out. “Grab a headband before you leave.” He left without further ado leaving a class of fifteen stunned students.

“Come on. Let’s go,” Elyse said to her clanmates. They didn’t need a headband. The Nintendo clan provided the headbands for their own members.

“Shouldn’t he tell us what to do now? Like give us missions or something? What are we supposed to do after getting our headbands?” Diane asked excitement reverberating through her voice.

“I think we’re on our own now,” Elyse said. “The kids that can’t figure out what to do aren’t worthy of the genin title.”

“Am I not worthy of the genin title?” Diane asked nervously.

“You’re fine, Diane,” Isamu reassured. “All we need to do is find a jonin instructor to take us on. Our clan always provides instructors for new genin.”

“Oh, ok,” Diane relaxed. “Who will be our instructor then?”

“Mr. Peterson,” Isamu answered simply. Elyse spun towards him, mouth open.

“What!?” she shrieked. Mr. Peterson would not make a good jonin instructor at all. He liked to lecture, not teach. How did that even happen?

“Just kidding,” Isamu said with a pleased smile for getting the reaction he wanted out of Elyse. Elyse smacked his arm lightly.

“Don’t joke like that. I could just picture him sitting us down in front of him and describing the correct way to perform a replacement jutsu for the duration of our training. Besides, I’m pretty sure he still hates me.”

“I had a teacher that hated me in sixth grade. Mrs. Navarez, her name was. She taught English. Sometimes, she taught art too. I only had her for English.”

“Hey, isn’t your dad a jonin?” Diane interrupted before Isamu could go on one of his tangents.

“Yes, he is.” Elyse gladly grabbed onto the distraction Diane handed her. “I’m pretty sure he would have already offered if he wanted to be my jonin instructor, though.”

“What about Mitsuko?”

Elyse snorted. “Diane, she’s 56 years old. She doesn’t want to go on anymore ninja missions.”

“My friend, Ryan, was in the class too, but Mrs. Navarez liked him,” Isamu persisted.

Elyse rounded on him and pointed an accusing finger at him. “You’re telling your stories in the most boring way possible on purpose, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Isamu said with a blank expression.

“You are! Admit it. I’ve figured out your game, Isamu. Congratulations. You pranked the whole village. You can give it up now. You’re caught.”

“I didn’t think my stories were that bad. What makes them so boring?” Isamu asked innocently.

“I’m not falling for it anymore,” Elyse reaffirmed.

“Alright. Fine.” Isamu sighed.

“Wait, were you really faking your poor storytelling?” Diane asked with a frown.

“Sort of,” Isamu admitted. “I’m not great at it anyways. I really wasn’t at all interesting in my old life, so I made my stories more boring than they needed to be in the hopes that people would stop asking about my life. It worked. And then it just became fun to annoy people.”

“I knew it. You started to make yourself too obvious lately. Continuing a story when we interrupted you… Please, that’s way too obvious.” Elyse felt relief in finding out that her friend was not the worst in the world at something. “You know, there are easier ways to get people to stop asking you about your past life.”

“I suppose I could just lie about it like you do,” Isamu mused.

“What? I don’t lie about my past life,” Elyse denied.

“So you were really killed by a shot put throw to the head?” Isamu asked doubtfully. Elyse nodded vigorously.

“You told me it was a discus to the head,” Diane accused.

Oops. Elyse shrugged her shoulders. “So I sometimes get my old school Olympian projectiles confused. It’s still how I died.”

“How? The discus or the shot put?”

The three newly minted genin put a halt to their conversation as they entered the clan compound. Diane’s parents, Elyse’s parents and brother, and the head of the clan stood by the entrance each holding a new headband. Elyse tried not to roll her eyes. She didn’t want to do this ritual.

Diane stepped forward first. She bowed to the head of the clan, Juanita Molina. “I, Diane Fujiwara, accept my position as genin of the Nintendo clan of Sunagakure. I promise to uphold the clans secrets and above all else to join in the clan duty to preserve the sanctity of canon.”

Juanita smiled. “You are accepted as genin of the Nintendo clan, Diane Fujiwara. Take your headband and await your assignment.”

Diane took her headband from her parents, hugged them, and then waited as Isamu stepped forward for his turn. Elyse hated herself as she repeated the stupid lines required for the ceremony, but it had to be done. She could take a shower to wash off the absurdity later.

After Elyse took her headband from her parents, Juanita cleared her throat. “Your jonin instructor will meet you at Carpaccio’s tomorrow at noon.” With that, she left the area.

“Our jonin instructor wants to meet at an Italian restaurant?” Elyse asked incredulously. She shook her head. “Sure. Why not?”

Noon the next day, Elyse stood outside Carpaccio’s with her two new teammates. “He’s late,” Diane complained.

“I’m sure he’ll show up soon,” Isamu said yawning.

“How are you so tired? It’s noon,” Diane said placing her hands on her hips.

“I spent the night inventing a new game,” Isamu said. “It’s a card game where the goal is to cheat without anyone else noticing. I’m still hammering out all the details.”

“Ah, ninja cards,” Elyse said in understanding. “I’d kick your ass at that.”

“Careful. Not around the kid,” Isamu warned nodding his head towards Diane who scowled at him. “You know her dad hates when you cuss around her.”

“Shut up, Isamu,” Diane snapped. “I’m eleven. I’m old enough to hear the word ‘ass’.”

Elyse gasped and looked around while covering Diane’s mouth with her hand. “Oh no. I’ve corrupted her. Isamu, what do we do?”

Diane twisted out of Elyse’s grasp. “Ass,” she called Elyse.

At that moment, a black haired gentleman around 30 years old exited the restaurant and stared curiously at the kids. “Aren’t you three going to come inside?”

“We’re waiting for our jonin sensei. He’s late,” Diane explained. The gentleman blinked.

“No, I’m not. What kind of sensei would I be if I couldn’t show up at the time I set? I’ve been waiting inside the restaurant for the last 20 minutes. You three are late,” he said. The three genin stared back at him in silence for a good ten seconds.

“Well, how were we supposed to know that?” Elyse muttered. She brushed past the guy that was to be her new jonin sensei.

The guy led them to a table and gestured for them to sit. “It’s tradition amongst new teams for everyone to introduce themselves listing their likes, dislikes, hobbies, and dreams for the future,” he said once they were all sitting.

“Let’s not,” Elyse said immediately. “Introductions like that are always the most awkward things. Besides, we already know each other. Why don’t you just tell us your name and we can get on with it?”

“Fine. I’m Ryuu Peterson,” the man said. Elyse froze.

“Peterson? Like the guy that teaches Naruto history to children?”

“Yes. That’s my father.”

Elyse turned to Isamu angrily. “This is your fault. You jinxed us.”

Isamu held up his hands in innocence. “Don’t blame me. I don’t assign jonin senseis.”

“Is there a problem?” Ryuu asked.

“No, no. Of course not,” Elyse reassured with a smile. Ryuu looked back at her doubtfully. “I just don’t think your father likes me much.”

“You must be Elyse,” Ryuu said simply. “Dad said you were a handful, but they promised me double pay and less hours, so I figured it was worth it.” He turned to the other two. “And I guess that makes you Diane and Isamu.”

They both nodded. “Why are we in an Italian restaurant?” Diane burst out like she waited to ask that the whole time.

“Because I like Italian,” Ryuu answered simply. Diane slumped in her seat. “And I heard the lobster ravioli here is to die for.”

Isamu pointed to Diane. “She doesn’t need the ravioli. She’s Diane already.”

Elyse erupted into giggles as Diane rolled her eyes and folded her arms across her chest. Ryuu frowned at Isamu. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Because you said the ravioli was to die for,” Elyse explained once she got a hold of herself. “And Diane sounds like dying. It was great.”

“No, it wasn’t, Elyse,” Diane huffed in annoyance. “You’re the only person that thinks Isamu’s jokes are funny. Honestly, your four year old brother makes better jokes than Isamu.”

“Yesterday, Kei asked me what a goat with three legs was called. The answer was a goat,” Elyse said unimpressed with her brother’s non joke.

“Exactly. A better joke than any Isamu makes,” Diane maintained.

Elyse started to say something back when she heard Ryuu muttering to himself quietly about double pay. “I heard that Ryuu,” she said.

In the end, Ryuu made an okay teacher all things considered. He didn’t like teaching and he was only there for the perks of the job, but he never slacked. Under his tutelage, the three friends improved their strength, stamina, and basic ability all while starting their in depth stealth training. In six months time, they were able to move on from D ranks to C ranks.

Meanwhile, Haru started teaching Elyse his own secret technique. The technique wasn’t nearly as cool as Elyse expected. In fact, she didn’t understand the purpose of it at all. “This technique is like the replacement jutsu,” Haru started. “But instead of replacing yourself with a nearby object, you replace yourself with nothing.”

Elyse waited for Haru to expand on his explanation, but he just looked expectantly back at Elyse. “Um, I don’t think I’m getting it. Can you show me an example?”

Haru went through a series of hand signs, paused a beat, and then turned triumphantly to Elyse. “There. You see, I successfully switched places with nothing.”

“I-” Elyse found herself a bit lost for words. “This is the technique that got you promoted to jonin?”

“Yes.” Haru smiled proudly.

“I see. Who is responsible for jonin promotions again?”

“The jonin commander.”

“And that would be?” Elyse pressed.

Haru rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t know who it is now, but Kin Akagi was the jonin commander that promoted me.”

“Right, right. And where can I find him?”

“He’s in the Suna mental hospital right now.”

“That… is not the least bit surprising,” Elyse said. She looked backwards into their house. “You know what, I think Eri’s going to need help with dinner tonight with everyone that’s coming over.” The family was throwing a small celebration for Kei’s fifth birthday.

“Oh,” Haru said widening his eyes in realization. “I’m sorry, Elyse. I’m absolutely terrible at explaining things. When I say I replace myself with nothing, I mean that briefly, literally nothing is in the spot where I just was.”

“But I saw you standing there the whole time,” Elyse pointed out.

“I did say briefly. You just missed when I disappeared. Watch more closely this time.” Haru repeated the jutsu, Elyse noticed a very slight flicker.

“That’s hardly long enough to matter.”

“On the contrary. It’s just the right amount of time for kunai, shuriken, senbon, or whatever people throw to fly right through me.”

“That… actually sounds a little useful,” Elyse allowed. She still thought a regular replacement jutsu would work just as well there, but she figured Haru’s jutsu at least allowed him to keep on the same path and surprise the enemy. “But what happens to you when you switch places with nothing? Where do you go?”

“Nowhere. I just don’t exist for that time.” Elyse shivered. Maybe she didn’t want to learn this technique, after all. “Don’t worry. It doesn’t last long enough for your mind to comprehend it.”

“Ok. How do I do it?”

Haru squinted at Elyse noticing the hesitance on her face. “Tell you what, why don’t you go help your mother with dinner and we’ll pick this back up tomorrow?”

Elyse nodded and headed towards the door. A thought struck her, and she paused to turn back to Haru. “Hey, why is Kin Akagi in the mental hospital?”

“He’s a doctor there,” Haru answered simply.

“You really should mention these things sooner,” Elyse said in exasperation. She went back inside the house.

The sort of replacement jutsu was not an easy jutsu to learn. It took a whole year for Elyse to use it the first time and three more years for her to completely master it. Elyse stared behind her at the barrage of senbon that had presumably passed through the area she stood in. She looked back at Haru.

“I think I’ve finally gotten the hang of this.” Haru stepped forward and hugged Elyse.

“Congratulations. Carry on my legacy well.”

Suddenly, the clan alarm went off throughout the compound. The clan alarm being a harried ninja running around screaming, “Someone’s disrupting canon! Someone’s disrupting canon!”

Haru released Elyse, horror etching across his face. “That’s the most critical alarm we have. It’s never been sounded before.”

Elyse was practically bouncing on her toes, curiosity racing through her. Had it been done without her help? Was canon ruined? She could only hope. “Let’s go to the town hall! That’s what protocol says.”

It took a while to get to the town hall due to the traffic. Everyone over the mental age of twelve headed over to hear what happened and what the clan response would be. “Quiet! Everyone!” Juanita spoke loudly over the crowd. “Let’s hear what Mr. Peterson has to say.”

The man that used to teach Elyse stood next to Juanita a little paler than usual. “I just received word from one of my spies in Konoha,” he said with a grave tone. “She informed me that Sasuke Uchiha ate a full plate of breakfast the morning of the bell test.”

Pandemonium broke out among the crowd. Someone started crying. Parents comforted their children although they themselves were on the verge of panicking. Beside Elyse, Eri moaned, “How could this have happened?” Elyse pondered the possibility that reincarnation made people go a little insane. Or, perhaps, only insane people got reincarnated.

“Everybody calm down,” Juanita said gently to the crowd of chaos in front of her. “There is no need to panic. Yes, I know Sasuke Uchiha did not eat breakfast in the original version of the story, but this is a minor change. We need to keep calm in these crucial times and figure out a way to prevent anymore changes from happening.”

“But he ate breakfast!” a voice called out despairingly. “What if Sakura or Naruto ate breakfast too?” Panicked murmurs rose up again at the possibility.

“They didn’t,” Mr. Peterson said before the crowd could rile itself up again. “My spy assures me that neither of them had so much as a grain of rice that morning.”

The crowd relaxed a little bit at the news though remained wary due to the news about Sasuke. For her part, Elyse felt more than a little bit disappointed. Upon hearing the alarm, she imagined something much more significant like maybe Naruto failing the test or something. This breakfast nonsense didn’t even matter. Not that the crowd agreed with that.

“Whoever caused this should be strung up and hung,” a voice shouted.

“Yeah!” agreed the crowd.

“No one’s going to be strung up and hung,” Juanita said hurriedly. “Although they will need to answer some questions. We’re going to come up with a plan to find the culprit, and we will execute that plan without delay. I’m going to need all jonin capable clan members to meet at the Hall of Justice.”

Damn. Elyse really wanted to hear the plan. Haru turned to his wife and daughter putting a hand on each of their shoulders. “I’ll be back,” he said. “Don’t worry. We’ll ensure canon lives on.”

Eri hugged her husband. “Be careful,” she whispered to him.

“Yeah, um, go make plans about restoring canon. You can do it.” Elyse gave Haru a thumbs up trying not to let her apathy show.

When Eri and Elyse got back to their house, Eri gathered Kei in her arms holding him tight. “Mom, what?” Kei looked at his sister for help.

“Sasuke ate breakfast before the bell test thus slightly changing canon,” Elyse explained. When Kei’s face continued to look bewildered, Elyse just shrugged at him with a feeling of pride. Unlike most members of the clan, Kei never understood the importance of canon. Elyse loved her brother.

The jonin of the clan finally settled on a plan months later. Elyse didn’t learn of this until she, Diane, and Isamu stood in front of Juanita, Mr. Peterson, and Haru in the Hall of Justice. “You three will go to Konoha to take the chunin exam. The chunin exam lasts months, so you’ll have time to observe everyone in Konoha. Focus primarily on team seven.”

“Yes, Miss Suzuki?” Mr. Peterson called as Elyse raised her hand.

“Wouldn’t having us take the chunin exam change canon more than Sasuke eating breakfast? I’m pretty sure we weren’t at the chunin exams in the manga.”

“Some of the other jonin had the same complaints. We’ve already discussed this ad nauseam,” Juanita said with the soullessness of a person that couldn’t bear to rehash the same points even just one more time.

“But we weren’t here for the argument, so I don’t understand,” said Elyse.

Juanita turned to Haru tiredly. “Haru, please take this one.”

Haru nodded. “Elyse, it is true that we put canon in danger by entering you into the chunin exams, but we have to take the risk in order to find out who caused the first change in canon. If we left it alone, who knows what could happen? You are to fail the first part of the exams anyway to minimize the risk.”

Elyse thought the whole thing a disproportionate response to breakfast, but she forced herself to let reason go in favor of getting to go to the place that would offer her the most opportunities to really change canon. Diane stepped forward hesitantly. “Excuse me, but my dad says I’m not allowed to take the chunin exam until I’m sixteen.”

Elyse nodded. That was the reason the whole team were still genin. Isamu and Elyse didn’t want to take the test without Diane, and Diane’s dad didn’t want her taking on harder missions.

“We are aware of that, and we already got permission from your father to make an exception in this case,” Juanita said. “He understands that you could play an important role in saving canon.”

Diane looked down at the ground overcome with emotion. “You honor me,” she whispered.

“Head up, Diane,” Juanita coaxed. Diane looked up hesitantly. “There isn’t another team of three I would pick for this mission. You are all exceptionally skilled for genin. And the other team I asked refused, but never mind that. Will you three accept this mission and the dangers that come with it?”

“Of course!” Diane answered immediately.

“Definitely,” Elyse said firmly shortly after. She was already imagining all the canon events she could mess with.

“Eh, I guess I don’t have anything better to do,” Isamu said with a shrug. He glanced at Diane out of the corner of his eye and carried on. “I was genin a little tired of being a genin anyways.”

Diane groaned and rolled her eyes, Elyse cackled, and Juanita kicked them out of the room. “How can you be laughing at that?” Diane complained to Elyse. “That was the worst one yet.”

Elyse put an arm around Diane’s shoulder. “Diane, my young non reincarnated friend, you still have a lot to learn. Haven’t you realized yet that the joke isn’t in the pun?”

Diane raised her brows suspiciously at Elyse while removing her arm from her shoulders. “What are you talking about? What else would the joke be?”

“The joke is in everyone’s reaction to the puns,” Isamu explained. “Your groans and eye rolls, the disappointed face everyone has when they finally realize a terrible pun has been made. That’s humor.”

Diane blinked at him. “You know what, I’m going to see if I can go to the chunin exams with a different team.”

The day before Elyse left for Konoha, she visited Mitsuko to say goodbye. “Before you go, I have one last story for you,” Mitsuko said. Elyse smiled. Mitsuko always had a story for her. “It’s about how I lost my sharingan.”

Elyse’s smile disappeared in shock. “Are you sure you want to entrust me with that story?”

“Of course, I’m sure. I wouldn’t tell you if I wasn’t sure,” Mitsuko snapped. “I’m telling you this because I know that you are like myself. You don’t care two bits about canon.”

Elyse gasped. “You don’t care about canon either?” It was official. Mitsuko was her favorite person.

“Of course not. What happens happens. Who cares about some story from our first world?” Mitsuko said with a snort.

“Yes. Exactly. Why is there all this fuss about keeping everything exactly the same as the Naruto story? I couldn’t believe the chaos in the clan after the Sasuke incident.”

Mitsuko shook her head. “Truth be told, that incident gave me great hope. See, I used to think it was impossible to change canon because I tried, Elyse. Oh, did I try. And that’s the story I wanted to tell you today.”

Elyse leaned in closer to Mitsuko to make sure she didn’t miss anything.

“You asked me whether I had the Mangekyou sharingan. I did. I received my Mangekyou when I thought Hana Aburame committed suicide after I accidentally killed a few of her bugs. I later learned that her bugs could catch her in midair and fly her to safety, but I still received my Mangekyou in the few seconds that I thought I was responsible for her death. When I got my Mangekyou, I knew that I had to use it to save the Uchiha clan from it’s fate. I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it, I just knew that I was going to do it.

“An idea came to me one day as I went to Uchiha festival with my family. At the time, I remembered that someone killed the clan to prevent the coup, but I didn’t remember who. I decided that I needed help to either stop the clan from planning a coup or to figure out who would massacre the clan. I told my family everything. I told them I was reincarnated, I told them about the story my grandson used to love about Konoha ninja. It took a while to get them to believe me, but eventually, they were convinced.

“After my revelations, my parents involved themselves more with clan politics taking a stand that the clan should work on improving relations with the village. They made a lot of enemies with Uchiha that were furious at the unfair treatment of the Uchiha by the village, but they managed to change the minds of a few.

“All their efforts went to waste when they turned up dead in the middle of the street in the Konoha market. I knew it was one of the clan members more vocally opposed to Konoha that had murdered my parents, but he succeeded at framing a Konoha council member as the murderer. I disposed of the real murderer without getting caught, but the damage was already done. My sister, Keiko, and I were left without parents, and the Uchiha’s rage at the village was renewed. I knew then and there that I had to put all my efforts into making sure Keiko didn’t die in the massacre.

“I pleaded and begged for Keiko to go with me to join the Nintendo clan, but she refused. She had a husband and child by that point. She wouldn’t leave them, and she wouldn’t force them to a new less safe village. I told her Konoha was the least safe village for an Uchiha, but she insisted she would leave if the Uchiha started pushing for a coup. Not until then, though, no matter what I said.

“I eventually relented under one condition, that Keiko take my Mangekyou sharingan so she could protect herself against the attacker. We had her husband, a medic, swap our eyes, and then I no longer had the sharingan. See, Keiko was a rare Uchiha kunoichi that never received her sharingan. I believe it was a genetic mutation.

“I left Konoha soon after I imparted Keiko with my eyes expecting her to join me when she realized her options were limited. Only days after taking my place in the Nintendo clan, I received notice from Konoha informing me that Keiko had died on a mission in Mist.

“I almost gave up on saving the Uchiha clan then. Keiko was the only Uchiha I still cared for. But then I remembered Keiko’s child. I sent word to the Uchiha clan telling them all I knew about the massacre which was significantly more after I’d become part of the Nintendo clan. I never thought that my warnings would have no effect.”

Elyse and Mitsuko sat in sorrowful silence at the end of her words. Elyse remembered Mitsuko being absolutely devastated for weeks after the Uchiha massacre. At the time, she thought it was just sadness for the death of her clan, but now Elyse realized Mitsuko hadn’t expected a massacre to happen at all.

“Keiko’s kid?” Elyse asked because she had to know. Mitsuko shook her head silently. “I’m sorry.”

“Elyse, a lot of people I’ve loved have been taken from me through death. I miss them all, but I’ve learned to move passed it. I had to or I wouldn’t be here right now.”

Elyse suddenly felt like she had to share something with Mitsuko after Mitsuko had given Elyse her most personal story. “I committed suicide,” Elyse admitted for the first time. “That’s how I really died. I jumped off a cliff.”

“I know,” was all Mitsuko said. Elyse hugged the old woman goodbye.

The next day, Elyse got up early to set off for Konoha. Her mom, dad, and brother walked her to the gates of the village where Diane already stood with her family. “Where’s Isamu?” Diane asked impatiently shifting from foot to foot clearly unable to keep still in the midst of her excitement.

“I don’t know. It’s still early,” Elyse said.

“Are you excited?” Diane asked. “I’m excited. We’ll get to meet all of the main characters!”

“Diane, you’ll be there to preserve canon,” Diane’s father chastised.

Diane nodded, immediately contrite. “Yes, of course. I just can’t believe I’ll be seeing all of them.”

Elyse sighed. She wished Diane weren’t so obsessed with the Naruto story. It was an epidemic within the clan. Shortly afterwards, Isamu showed up to the gate with Ryuu Peterson in tow. Elyse hoped their jonin sensei didn’t have to accompany them, but that was the rule.

“Alright. Say your goodbyes,” Ryuu said. “I want to leave before it gets any hotter. We’ll be travelling across a desert, you know?”

Elyse hugged her parents and her brother goodbye. “We’re so proud of you, Elyse,” said Eri with a smile. “Don’t forget to write back home.”

“I won’t,” she promised.

“Can you steal one of the Inuzuka’s dogs?” Kei asked. “I want a ninja dog.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Elyse lied. With that, Ryuu and the three genin set off for Konoha.

The journey to Konoha was long, arduous, and filled with annoyances. Ryuu escaped the annoyances by insisting on travelling far ahead of the genin claiming that he needed to scout the area. The other three practiced getting on each others’ nerves. “Isamu, if you don’t stop humming that song, I will literally break your arms,” Elyse said after she felt a headache coming up.

Isamu stopped his humming abruptly and looked at Elyse quizzically. “When you say that, are you using literally to mean literally or to mean figuratively.”

“To mean literally, of course,” Elyse said. “No one uses literally to mean figuratively.”

“So if I continued to hum, you would actually break my arms? That’s a little harsh.”

“No, I wouldn’t break your arms. I was speaking figuratively.”

“But you just said you were being literal.”

“No. I said my use of literally was literal. There are two options for making that sentence mean that I won’t break your arms. The first is the one I used where I used literally to mean literally to make a figurative statement. The second option is to use literally to mean figuratively to make a literal statement. If I used literally to mean figuratively to make a figurative statement, that would mean I was saying that I will, in fact, break your arms. It’s like a double negative.”

“How do I know you weren’t following the second option, then?”

“Because that would be stupid. Literally doesn’t mean figuratively. I wouldn’t use it to mean something that it doesn’t mean. In that case, I might as well just say ‘I will figuratively break your arms’ which sounds lame and completely destroys the bite in the sentence.”

“Why even bother saying ‘literally’ though? It makes the word meaningless and adds nothing to the statement. There’s no difference between saying ‘I will break your arms’ and ‘I will literally break your arms’ in a figurative way.”

“Because it’s a simple thing that pisses people off. Anytime I can irritate the pedants, I’m going to.”

“You mean all the time? Anyways, I still think you can use literally to mean figuratively.”

“Actually, I changed my mind. I was using literally literally and the sentence was literal. It was just a lie and lying is different than being figurative.” Elyse nodded to herself.

“That’s great and all,” Diane broke in insincerely. “But if this conversation is still going in the next minute, I will literally break your arm.”

“Are you using literally to mean figuratively in a literal statement, or are you using literally to mean literally in a figurative statement?” Isamu piped up.

“Or were you just lying?” Elyse added.

“None of the above. I’m using literally to mean literally in a literal statement, and I mean it truthfully. Feel free to check that.” Neither Isamu nor Elyse took Diane up on that offer. They toned down their irritating habits for the rest of the trip.

The team strolled slowly through Konoha after getting their papers checked by the guards at the gate. Slowly because Diane kept stopping to gawk at things she recognized from drawings. “Oh my God! Look at that!” she kept saying.

“Yes, yes. It’s a building,” Ryuu said absently without looking where Diane pointed.

“Actually, it’s a person,” said Isamu who did look where Diane pointed. All three spoke Japanese for it was mostly forbidden to speak another language outside of the clan compound. That helped to ensure other ninja didn’t learn one of the Nintendo clan’s languages.

Elyse followed Diane’s finger and indeed, a girl with pink hair stood at an outdoor shop directly in line with Diane’s fingers. “Diane, don’t point,” Elyse said pushing the girl’s hand down. “Just because her hair is a strange color doesn’t mean you can make a spectacle out of her.”

“Oops. Sorry,” said Diane with a blush at her slip. She really needed to do better at staying incognito. “Hey… we need bread, right?”

Elyse looked over to Sakura and saw that the shop she stood at was in fact a bakery. “No. We need to check into our hotel,” Ryuu said sternly. He frowned at Diane. “No funny business. We’re here to work.”

Diane dragged her feet as they continued along. A plan formed into Elyse’s mind. The first part of the chunin exams wasn’t for another couple of days. She could probably convince Diane to bump into some main characters. It just depended on whether Diane’s desire to meet her childhood heroes outweighed her devotion to canon.

“Hey,” Elyse said slowly after they finished settling into their hotel room. Ryuu had his own room, of course. “We should check out that ramen place from the manga. Ichiraku or whatever.”

From his spot on the bed, Isamu cracked an eye open to eye Elyse suspiciously. Diane’s eyes lit up. “Yes! We definitely have to go there. Just as long as it’s not during a canon moment.”

“Are there any canon moments at Ichiraku around this time?” Elyse asked. Diane didn’t answer as she ran out the door yelling for the other two to follow her. Elyse looked at Isamu and raised her brows at him in question. “You coming?”

“Nope. I want sleep.” Isamu rolled over and snuggled into a pillow. Elyse shrugged to herself and ran off after Diane.

“This ramen is… unimpressive,” Diane decided halfway through her bowl of ramen.

“It taste quite rameny,” Elyse said in agreement. “I don’t know why you expected differently. It’s ramen.”

“But it’s the ramen,” Diane emphasized. “The one from you know.”

Elyse sighed. She did know. “That doesn’t stop it from being ramen. I mean it is quite good ramen, but what you can’t expect more than this.”

“Fine,” Diane grumbled before continuing to stuff the ramen into her face. Suddenly, she stopped staring with wide eyes a distance away from the ramen shop. “Look who it is! The Kazekage’s children!”

Sure enough, Temari, Kankuro, and Gaara stood by a tree seemingly staring at the ground next to it. “And? You’ve already seen them all before. We’re from Suna, like them. Kankuro was in our class at the academy.”

“Yeah, but they weren’t in Konoha then,” Diane said as if that changed everything. She tapped her finger on her lips thoughtfully. “We should probably greet them. It wouldn’t do if our clan ignored our fellow Sunans and the Kazekage’s children at that. Think about the political repercussions.”

“The Suna government already accepts that we keep to ourselves. That’s why we’re not part of the invasion plan. They would probably be more freaked by us than anything.” This was one part of canon Elyse did not want to venture into. Right now, Gaara loved hurting people, and Elyse loved not getting hurt. Staying away from Gaara was the best way to avoid such things.

“Did something happen?” Diane asked. “I think i can feel Gaara radiating killing intent from here.”

“I think that’s just Gaara’s natural rate of killing intent,” Elyse guessed.

“He has a natural rate of killing intent?”

Elyse nodded. “Every ninja has a natural rate of killing intent,” Elyse said. “It’s the part of you that wants to give off a threat to anyone that might consider attacking you. It’s also the small part of you that’s reacting to minor annoyances like the sun shining in your eyes, or your younger brother taking the last samosa even though he knows you love samosas and you only had one because you were too busy making the rest of dinner.”

“Kei, I’m guessing,” Diane said dryly.

“Yep. But moving on, a person’s rate of killing intent can fluctuate depending on what happens throughout the day and their emotional response to it, but in the long term, the rate of killing intent will lean towards the natural rate of killing intent of around 4.5%. You won’t even feel that low of killing intent. Gaara’s natural rate of killing intent is much higher than a normal person’s. That’s why you can feel it from all the way over here,” Elyse finished while Diane looked on with a flat stare.

“It’s sounds like you’re talking about the natural rate of unemployment which means you made the natural rate of killing intent up.”

“No, no. It’s real,” Elyse lied. “It just shares a few similarities.”

“And the natural rate of killing intent is about 4.5%?”

“Yes.”

“4.5% of what?”

“Of the total amount of chakra that flows freely around your body.”

“Damn it, Elyse. Just admit you’re making this up,” Diane said folding her arms.

“I can’t admit something that’s not true,” Elyse said with a smirk.

“Whatever.” Diane got up. “I’m going to pay the Kazekage’s children the respects of the Nintendo clan.”

Elyse reached out and grabbed Diane’s arm before she could leave. “Are you crazy? You know what Gaara’s like.”

“Relax. He’s not going to do anything in the middle of a foreign village.” With that, Diane snatched her arm back and started towards the siblings. Elyse reluctantly joined her.

As Diane and Elyse got closer to the siblings, Elyse saw that they were staring at a sprinkler. Elyse could kind of understand the confusion. The sprinkler was a little too close to the tree for maximum optimization. She wondered who planned the sprinkler system for this area. That was the only sprinkler in the area and everything behind the tree was blocked off by the tree. Still, she didn’t understand why that sprinkler caused killing intent to pour off of Gaara.

By Diane’s horrified gasp, she understood perfectly. “What a waste of water!” Oh, right. Elyse had forgotten about the importance of water in Suna. Perhaps having grown up with plenty of water in her first life made her immune to the worship for water that native Sunans developed.

The other three turned to stare at Diane as she spoke. “Isn’t it?” Temari said shaking her head. “We asked one of the villagers what was so special about this grass that they were willing to invest precious water into it, but she just looked at us like we were the strange ones.”

“Half the water sprayed the side of the tree!” Kankuro waved an arm at the tree wildly in outrage.

“I want to find out who’s responsible for this,” Gaara said in a cold voice, his killing intent spiking shortly. Everyone there shivered as they felt icy fear resonating throughout their blood in response.

“Whoa, that was way above the natural rate of killing intent!” Elyse exclaimed before she could stop herself. Three gazes swung from Diane to her.

“What?” Temari asked with a furrowed brow.

“Don’t ask,” Diane interjected. “She’s just blathering.”

Temari suddenly frowned at the headband on Diane’s head. On principle, Elyse refused to wear hers unless absolutely necessary. “The Nintendo clan. I heard you guys had a team in these exams. I hope you will represent the village well.”

Elyse glanced askance at Gaara as he tore the sprinkler out of the ground with his sand. “We’ll try. Someone needs to.”

Diane kicked Elyse in the leg before giving out a forced laugh and smiling at Temari. “Don’t listen to her. She’s twelve. You know how kids are.”

Temari briefly glanced over to where Gaara wrapped sand around the sprinkler and crushed it. “My experience with twelve year olds is kind of specific to one twelve year old. I don’t think he quite represents the mean.”

“Shh. What if he hears you?” Kankuro hissed to his sister. She paled slightly.

“I meant that he’s obviously better than the average twelve year old,” Temari covered.

“Indeed,” Elyse said quietly as Gaara turned his back on the sprinkler having been satisfied by its demise. “Well, I think we better go now. Our sensei wants us back for training soon.”

“We didn’t get your names,” Gaara said meeting Elyse’s gaze. She gulped. His sand still danced around him.

“I’m Elyse. That’s Diane.”

“Gaara,” Gaara said succinctly. He glared pointedly at his siblings.

“I’m Temari,” Temari said hastily.

Kankuro followed right afterwards with the same amount of haste even though he’d already met Diane and Elyse. “I’m Kankuro.”

“I’m interested to see how the Nintendo clan performs in the exams,” Gaara continued. “Maybe I’ll meet one of you in the finals.”

“Yup. Maybe,” Diane squeaked out as she backed away from Gaara and his restless sand. Pleased that Diane was finally seeing the danger, Elyse took the opportunity to drag her away quickly.

“Oh my God. That was amazing!” Diane said as they reached a safe enough distance away from Gaara.

“Amazing?” Elyse asked incredibly. “Just one more sprinkler and Gaara would have been in a bad enough mood to tear our heads off whether we were in the middle of Konoha or not.”

“I know, right?” Diane said enthusiastically. “I can’t wait to tell my parents about this!” She thought for a second and shook her head. “On second thought, I won’t tell them about this. I don’t want them freaking out over nothing.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it nothing,” Elyse muttered.

“Oh my God,” Diane breathed for probably the 50th time that day.

“What?” Elyse asked perking up as she tried to figure out what Diane was looking at now. Hopefully, it would be a canon character that hadn’t taken up murder as a hobby. She still wanted to do something to mess up canon by the end of the day.

“Hot guy,” Diane said and disappeared. Elyse jerked her head around frantically to try to see where Diane went. She finally spotted her talking to a boy working at a takoyaki stand. Elyse grimaced. The poor boy looked like a civilian which meant Diane’s usual flirting methods would probably scare him half to death. Elyse slowly made her way to the stand trying not to interfere because she didn’t want Diane to get mad at her.

“Breaking their arm is almost always a sure fire way to stop your everyday petty criminal,” Diane was saying as Elyse drew closer. The boy running the stand had a strained smile plastered on his face as he listened to Diane. “With ninja, it’s a little harder, but I’m sort of a master at crushing all the bones in an enemy ninja’s hand. They can’t perform hand seals with crushed hands.”

Diane pulled out a heavy chain and showed it off to the boy. “I just wrap this around their hands and then pull it tight until the bones crack. I haven’t yet met a ninja that didn’t end up out for the count after being on the receiving end of my bone pulverizer.”

The civilian kept his smile constant as Diane bragged about her brutal prowess. “That’s very impressive,” he said politely. He clearly had experience talking to ninja.

“Thank you.” Diane smiled sweetly at her target. “What time do you get off work?”

“I have the night shift today. I don’t get off of work until six tomorrow morning,” the boy said hurriedly.

“But it’s only four,” Diane protested. “And who buys takoyaki after midnight?”

“My boss hates me, and ninjas have strange schedules,” the boy explained. Elyse admired the poise he kept throughout the whole interaction even though he was clearly nervous.

“Ah, well. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.” Diane left the boy alone. He watched her warily until she was a safe enough distance away.

“Maybe you should stick to non civilian boys,” Elyse suggested when Diane reached her.

Diane frowned at her. “Why?”

Elyse sighed. “You know what, never mind. Keep scaring all the civilian boys. It’s kind of amusing.”

“What’s scary about what I said? I’m just showing that I can protect us from enemy ninja if the need should ever arise. Do civilians want a girl that runs screaming at the sight of an attacker?”

“Some of them, probably, but I think you just have to stop being so graphic. It makes civilians think about their own bones getting crushed when you talk about crushing enemies’ bones.”

“Whatever. I don’t want some guy that’s going to chicken out over a bit of pain,” Diane scoffed.

“That’s why I said you should give up on civilian boys,” Elyse said.

“But civilian boys are so innocent. It’s cute.”

“That’s completely contradictory to what you just said!” Diane stared back at her blankly. “Never mind. Let’s go back to the hotel room. I don’t think I’m going to get anything else out of this day.” Elyse had a better plan for disrupting canon anyways. She just had to wait for the first part of the chunin exams.


	3. Chapter 3

The next day, Ryuu informed his team that they had to meet up with his father’s contact in Konoha. The four of them henged into plain civilian looking people and snuck off to a small house on the outskirts of town. As Elyse stepped into the building, she stumbled a bit upon seeing the person leaning against a wall inside of the room. She recognized that girl from many drawings and photos shown around the clan. The girl that stood inside that very room was Tenten.

“Whoa!” Diane gasped.

“Yes, I’m a character in the manga,” Tenten said with a sigh. “Don’t get overly excited about it.” The other four people in the room dropped their henges.

“You’re not just a character. You’re a main character!”

Tenten rolled her eyes. “I’m hardly a main character. I just share a team with a couple of actual main characters.”

“What do you mean you’re not a main character? You’re one of the Konoha 11. You can’t get more main character than that,” argued Diane.

“Of course she can. She could be Naruto. He’s the ultimate main character,” Isamu said.

“I’m not any kind of main character,” Tenten reiterated placing her hands on her hips. “Think about the screen time I get in the manga. I’m just in the background when Team Guy is around because Kishimoto needed a female member to complete the team. My whole fight against Temari got cut out in the manga to show Ino and Sakura repairing their relationship at the end of their fight. It just cuts from them to me balanced on top of Temari’s fan knocked out. I’m not looking forward to that, by the way. And where am I after that? My skills never get properly explored. I practically have less cumulative screen time than freaking Tazuna!”

“Geez. Ok. We get it. You’re a supporting character,” Isamu said placatingly.

“A supporting character at best.” Tenten huffed. “But never mind that. I guess you guys are here to hear about the breakfast incident.”

“Yes. We’re just dying to hear all about Sasuke eating breakfast,” Elyse said. Ryuu shot her a displeased look for her sarcasm. Elyse held up her hands in a shrug .

Turning to Tenten, Ryuu focused on the topic at hand. “How did you find out he ate breakfast?”

Tenten rolled her eyes. “Guy sensei wanted to check out his rival’s new team to see what the competition was like. He watched them that whole morning and throughout the bell test. And then our team had to hear about it during the entirety of our next mission.”

“He watched them the whole morning? That’s kind of creepy,” Elyse put in.

“Tell me about it,” Tenten agreed. “It’s just one of Guy’s oddities, though. You learn to look past that sort of thing.”

“But do you know what caused the change?” Diane asked having gotten over her wonder at meeting a main character -or supporting character if she went by what Tenten said- that was also a reincarnated person.

Tenten shook her head. “It’s a mystery. Nothing else is different from canon.”

“I have a question,” Elyse said having thought of this before she’d even been given this mission. “How certain are we that Sasuke didn’t eat breakfast in canon?”

She received four befuddled looks in return. “What are you talking about?” asked Tenten. “Do you not remember Kakashi telling them not to eat the next morning? Do you not remember him telling team seven that he did that intentionally to fuck with them? Do you not remember their faces and growling stomachs afterwards?” She spoke certainly, but as she finished, she scratched her head and looked over to the others with a perturbed expression.

“Uh, it might not have been explicitly stated that Sasuke didn’t eat in the manga,” Tenten said with a frown as she tried to think back to the early part of the manga.

“It wasn’t. I checked before we left,” Elyse said. “It was implied heavily but never outright stated. Sasuke might have just gotten hungry again while waiting for Kakashi to show up,” Everyone else looked at each other with various degrees of chagrin for not having realized that themselves.

“You checked before we left?” Ryuu asked. Elyse nodded. “And you didn’t think to tell us then? You could have saved us from this whole mission.”

“I wanted to go on vacation to Konoha,” Elyse said.

“Works for me,” Isamu said with an uncaring shrug. Diane mouthed a ‘thank you’ to Elyse. Ryuu was less thankful. He scowled angrily at Elyse before shaking his head.

“Whatever. Juanita’s giving me a large bonus for this mission, and it turned out to be pretty simple. I’m going to go check out the wonderful Akimichi restaurants that Konoha is famous for.” Ryuu glided out the door leaving the younger folks to themselves.

Tenten let out a giddy laugh. “Well, I guess I caused a panic over nothing.”

“It certainly seems that way,” Elyse mused. “So you’re some kind of weapons specialist, right?”

Tenten tossed her head arrogantly. “I have the best weapon control of anyone chunin level or lower.”

“Highly unlikely,” Elyse said tossing her hair over her shoulder. “I can throw any projectile with high speeds and pinpoint accuracy. I’m basically the Clayton Kershaw of projectile weapons.”

Tenten furrowed her brows. “The what of projectile weapons?”

“Never mind.” Nobody ever got her baseball references. Was there no other reincarnated person that liked baseball? “The point is that you can’t have better weapon control than me. Not when it comes to projectiles.”

“But, Elyse,” Diane said timidly. “She’s Tenten.” Elyse narrowed her eyes at her. Traitor.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Isamu said. “We haven’t ever seen Tenten’s skills. They never really got showcased in the manga.”

“That’s what I was just saying,” Tenten said exasperatedly. “I might as well not be in the story. But back to the topic at hand… You have nothing on my weapon skills, Elyse, was it?”

“Yes. I’m Elyse-”

“I’m Diane!” Diane interjected.

“And,” Elyse continued ignoring Diane’s excited interruption. “I don’t think there’s anymore point in this back and forth. Let’s put this argument to the test.”

“Ooo, I like that.” Tenten cracked a smile. “Let’s set up some targets in one of the training grounds. We’ll test shuriken first and then kunai.”

“Deal,” Elyse said with a matching smile.

As the team from Suna made their way over to the training ground with Tenten, Diane bombarded the girl with questions. “Does Neji obsess over fate on a regular basis or is that just during fights?” “Do Guy and Lee wear those green jumpsuits all the time?” “Oh, they do? Doesn’t that make going to the bathroom a hindrance?” “Is Neji as awesome as he is in the manga?”

Tenten answered Diane’s questions briskly in the following ways; “Just when someone brings it up”, “Pretty much”, “I would assume”, and “He’s decidedly not awesome”.

“What? How is he not awesome?” Diane asked offended. “He’s got the byakugan and the juken. He kicks ass.”

“He is an ass. That’s why he’s not awesome,” Tenten said simply.

“But he gets better later,” Diane said with a slight whine.

“It’s not later though, is it?”

Diane frowned and sidled up next to Elyse. “I changed my mind. You’re going to do much better at weapon throwing than her.”

“Thanks for the support,” Elyse said sarcastically not moved by Diane’s sudden change in mind.

“Ok. Shuriken first. Then kunai.” Tenten said. Elyse nodded in agreement.

Both girls pretty much matched each other with both types of projectiles, but Elyse eked out a victory with kunai and narrowly lost with shuriken. “That settles it then,” said Elyse through ragged breaths. “You’re the Kershaw of shuriken, and I’m the Kershaw of kunai.”

“I still don’t know what a ‘Kershaw’ is,” Tenten said.

“She means you’re the Tom Brady of shuriken, and she’s the Tom Brady of kunai,” Isamu explained.

“Oh,” Tenten said as realization dawned on her. “I see now.”

“Great.” Elyse scowled at Isamu and Tenten. “You understand a football reference but not a baseball one.”

“American football is more popular than baseball,” Isamu said.

“American football is more popular in America. You’re Irish. Neither sport should be familiar to you. Why do you even know who Tom Brady is?”

“I watched a super bowl game once. It was boring, but I remember Tom Brady was playing.”

“Stop talking about stupid sports,” Diane complained. “I want to meet Neji and Lee. Tenten, can you take us to your team?”

“Hmm, let’s see,” Tenten said thoughtfully. “Right now, Neji is probably practicing in the Hyuga compound, so we can’t visit him. Lee is probably still Lee, so I don’t want to visit him. No, I won’t take you to see my team.”

“I’m glad you’re only in the background in the manga. You’re rude,” Diane said.

“Your words cut deeply,” Tenten remarked drily. She turned to Elyse. “Do you want to have another competition tomorrow?”

“Absolutely,” Elyse said. The team parted ways with Tenten and returned to their hotel room.

As Elyse and Diane got ready for bed, Isamu pulled out a deck of cards. “Wait. Before we go to sleep, let’s play a game.”

“Is it going to be short? I’m tired from my competition with Tenten.” Elyse yawned to emphasize her point.

“It’s not going to be short at all, but the setup will be so deal with it.” Isamu dealt five cards face up to the three of them. He proceeded to throw the rest of the deck in the trash can and set it on fire.

“What the hell are you doing?” Diane asked staring at the fire and then Isamu dubiously.

“Cards like this aren’t made outside of our clan, so I’m ensuring none of us can use cards that I didn’t just deal out. If you look at all of our hands, you’ll notice that each of us has a high card of ace. Right now, we would all tie. The goal of the game is to steal cards from the other players in order to make the best poker hand. We have until we fail the chunin exam. As soon as we exit the testing room, we check our cards.” Isamu picked up his cards and tucked them into his pocket. Diane and Elyse exchanged glances before snatching their own respective cards.

“This is a game I can get behind,” said Elyse as she made her way over to the dresser she was using. She already had some traps set up, so she could store her cards in there momentarily. After carefully placing her cards, she turned to the her friends with a grin. “You two know you have no chance against me, right? You never notice when I take something from you.”

Diane flicked her cards into a small pile and vanished the pile before their eyes. “You’re not getting any of my cards from me. Now shut up and go to bed. I plan to meet Naruto tomorrow if I have to search the whole village.”

As it turned out, Diane did end up searching practically the whole village with Elyse and Isamu in tow. Naruto turned out to be much more elusive than Elyse would have expected. She thought someone loud with a tendency to wear bright, attention grabbing clothing would be easy to find. “He has to be in the village,” Diane said despairingly. “The chunin exams start tomorrow.”

“Maybe we just keep missing him,” Elyse suggested.

Diane huffed. “Whatever. Let’s just go back to where Shikamaru was. I’ll set my goals a little lower.”

“Just two days ago, you would have been excited to see Shikamaru.” Diane ignored her in favor of turning around and going back the way she came from.

“Hey, you!” Diane called as she approached Shikamaru’s feet. He lifted his head slightly to see who was bothering him.

“What?”

“What’s your name?” Diane asked brusquely. Apparently, she wasn’t in a very patient or polite mood. Shikamaru laid his head back down without answering. Diane kicked lightly at his foot. “Don’t ignore me.”

Shikamaru sighed heavily and sat up. “What do you want?” he asked warily.

“I want you to entertain me,” Diane demanded. “So far everything in Konoha has been much more boring than I expected.”

Elyse sidled up next to Diane as Shikamaru pulled an expression that combined bafflement with peevishness. “Diane, do you know the definition of petulance?” Elyse asked quietly in her ear.

“Yes. Do you know the definitions of condescension and intrusiveness?”

The two girls smiled blandly at each other for a while until Elyse decided to put an end to it. She patted Diane’s back and then stepped to the side. “Alright, then. Carry on.” She turned to Shikamaru. “You’re going to have to entertain her.”

Shikamaru gazed back languidly. “How?” Elyse shrugged helplessly, and Diane just folded her arms.

“I know how,” Isamu said. “You need to say, ‘Jashin isn’t your God anymore. I am.’” Elyse giggled as Shikamaru frowned in confusion and Diane spun around appalled.

“Isamu, you can’t… You just… That’s not even the full quote,” Diane stammered. “And you can’t just say something like that. Not in front of…” Diane cut off looking back at Shikamaru who adopted some curiosity into his confusion.

“Come on, Diane,” Elyse said. “You know you want him to say it. What’s the harm?” Elyse was a little giddy herself at the prospect of Shikamaru saying his future line. It was just so ludicrous to be standing there trying to get someone to say something they were supposed to say years down the line.

“The harm? It could change…” Diane abruptly broke off again as she glanced at Shikamaru a glint in her eyes. “Will you say it?”

“Will you leave me alone if I do?” Shikamaru bartered. Diane nodded eagerly. “Well, ok then.” Shikamaru scratched his head awkwardly. “Um, Jashin isn’t your God anymore. I am.”

Elyse laughed at the completely bored tone Shikamaru used. Beside her, Diane clapped her hands together in glee. “It could use some work, but I’ll take it. Thank you, Sh- uh, random person I just met,” Diane said cheerfully. Shikamaru nodded hesitantly and laid back down to stare at the clouds. “Well, bye then.” Shikamaru lazily waved a hand in her direction.

“I’m glad he cooperated with the quote because he kind of sucks,” Diane said after they left Shikamaru in peace. “He’s wasn’t interesting at all.”

“I hope you don’t expect all of the characters to entertain you with manga type activities,” Elyse said.

“We’re about to leap headfirst into canon events. I’m sure we could expect it then,” Isamu pointed out.

“You mean the first part of the exam? At this point, I don’t think Diane will be satisfied by that.”

The subject of the conversation stopped in her tracks affronted. “Are you kidding me? They’ll all be there at the exam. Together. The whole cast of main character Konoha genin. Believe me, I’ll be more than satisfied.”

“Good then. I’m going to meet up with Tenten. Are you two going to come?” Elyse asked.

“Definitely. I’m not leaving you alone to hide your cards someplace secret,” Diane said. She turned to Isamu. “You’re coming too. For the same reason.” Isamu smirked back at her.

This time, Elyse won both competitions against Tenten, just barely. “Yes!” Elyse shouted. She looked at Tenten. “Nice try.”

“Sure,” Tenten said disgruntled. She smiled slyly at Elyse. “You want to try with nunchucks next.”

Elyse shook her head vehemently. She already told Tenten she had no use for close range weapons. Unlike projectiles, she had no natural talent with any close range weapons. Once her lack of talent in that area was made clear, she abandoned the idea of developing any related skills. “No way. If you want to go close range, ask Diane. She’s practically in love with her chain.”

“I’m not in love with it,” Diane said rolling her eyes. “I just recognize it’s value and the importance of taking proper care of it to keep its value at its maximum.”

“You also sleep with it at night,” Isamu chimed in.

“So that I can grab it easily if an enemy tries to attack me in my sleep!” Diane defended loudly. “Elyse sleeps with kunai under her pillow too.”

“Yeah. Under my pillow. Not hugged to my body by one of my arms.”

“That way I have access to it right away.” Diane pulled out the chain and waved it in Tenten’s direction. “Don’t listen to anything they say. I’m a professional. Do you want to challenge me or not?”

Tenten pulled out her own weighted chain. “This is actually one of my most used weapons. I wouldn’t expect to win if I were you.”

Diane stepped closer whirling her chain to her right. “How many different weapons do you claim mastery over? This is the only weapon I specialize in which means I’ve mastered it more than you.”

“Only people that underestimate my affinity for weapons think I can’t match their ability with their favorite weapon.” Tenten whipped her chain out interrupting the whirl of Diane’s chain. As the chains clashed together, Diane leaped forward thrashing the temporarily tangled chains at Tenten.

“Hey, Elyse,” Isamu whispered leaning down closer to her ear. “I’ll bet you an ace that Tenten wins this.”

“Intriguing.” Elyse watched as Tenten defended against a vicious blow towards her head. From watching the fight, she concluded that Diane was willing to take the fight more seriously than Tenten. “Ok. I’ll take you up on that bet.”

Elyse started to doubt her decision to agree to the bet as Tenten started to match Diane’s viciousness as the fight went on. Diane had power and speed over Tenten, but Tenten was just skilled enough to overcome that disadvantage. More than anything, Elyse hoped Diane won for Diane’s own sake. She took a lot of pride in her skill with her chain. Elyse blinked as she saw a kunai fly from Isamu’s hand and deflect Diane’s chain just as it was about to land a hit on Tenten’s waist.

“Hey! Don’t interfere with my fight!” Diane yelled at Isamu. Tenten’s chain wrapped around Diane’s arm as her attention was split by Isamu.

“You can’t cheat,” Elyse said angrily to Isamu as Diane freed her arm.

“It’s not cheating. No one ever made a rule against it.” Isamu had a point. Elyse took out a few kunai of her own and chucked them towards Tenten who ended up receiving a blow on her leg as she dodged the kunai. After that, Elyse and Isamu proceeded to empty their supplies of kunai on trying to influence the outcome of the fight.

The fight ended with Tenten bending backwards to avoid a kunai resulting in Diane sweeping her feet out from under her with the chain. Diane pounced on Tenten as she fell restraining her from movement. “I win,” Diane chirped.

“Yeah, fine, let me up,” Tenten said irritated. Diane leaped up and held out her hand to help up Tenten. Tenten grudgingly accepted the help.

Meanwhile, Elyse prodded Isamu in the side. “You owe me an ace.” Silently, Isamu pulled his ace out of his pouch and handed it to Elyse. She pocketed it quickly. “You never should have thrown that kunai. You gave Diane the advantage by doing so. I’m much better with kunai than you.”

Isamu shrugged. “I couldn’t resist the opportunity.”

“I’d be mad, but I won the fight, so I don’t care,” Diane said as she sauntered up to the two of them. Behind her, Tenten looked less pleased.

“I could have won that fight,” Tenten hissed.

“You can’t expect other people not to get involved in your fights. We were just helping you simulate a fight in the middle of a battlefield,” Elyse defended.

“I think a battlefield would be a bit more intense than that, actually,” Tenten said drily. “Never mind. Team Elyse and Diane won. Congratulations.” She turned to Isamu. “You need to work on your aim. It’s a disgrace.”

“So I’ve been told,” Isamu said indifferently.

Tenten frowned at him and then shook her head. “Ugh, I can’t believe I lost in two weapon competitions in one day. At this rate, I might as well hang up my chain and my kunai... And my shuriken and my tanto and my nunchuks and my mace and my club and my fan and-”

“Ok, we get it,” Elyse interrupted. “You have a lot of weapons. Maybe you should decrease your arsenal just a bit.”

“No way,” Tenten said. “I mean, I’d love to. As proud as I am of all my weapons, it’s just a little too much to keep track of for me, but it’s canon to have all these weapons. Besides, I could never decide which weapon to leave out. Maybe my club… No, I saved Neji’s life with that once. My bow and arrow, maybe? I never use that. I can throw faster than the bow can shoot. But what if I run out of other projectiles?”

“You know what? Just keep all your weapons,” Elyse said. “Clearly, you need each and every one.”

“Yeah, maybe I do.” As Tenten pondered her various weapon needs, Diane rested her hands on her hips.

“Why’d you two decide to interfere in our fight anyways?” she asked.

“I thought you said you didn’t care,” Elyse said. At Diane’s glare, she decided to answer the question. “Fine. Isamu and I made a bet on who would win the fight?”

“And you bet I would win?” Elyse nodded. With a touched smile, Diane pulled Elyse into a quick hug. As she released Elyse, she frowned at Isamu. “You bet against me?!”

“Someone had to. If we both bet you won, it wouldn’t really be a bet,” Isamu defended staring warily at the chain that was still in Diane’s hand. For Isamu’s protection, Elyse didn’t point out that Isamu initially proposed the bet by picking Tenten.

“Alright. I guess I can accept that. What did you two bet anyways?”

Elyse didn’t want to answer because it favored her for Diane to not know that she now held two aces. Unfortunately for her, Isamu had no motive to not answer the question. “We bet our aces.”

“What!” Diane exclaimed. “You gave up your ace to Elyse just like that? Where’s the subtlety in that? You’re supposed to use espionage and stealth to steal the cards not just bet it on something.”

“I made no such rule,” Isamu said.

Tenten looked between the three of them with confusion. “What in the world are you all babbling about?” Isamu explained the game to her. “You have cards that you can only get in the Nintendo clan compound?”

“Yep,” Diane said pulling out a two of diamonds from seemingly nowhere. She turned it around to show the back to Tenten. A Nike symbol was drawn onto the back of the card. “Apparently, this is some symbol from your original world.”

“It definitely is,” Tenten said staring at the symbol with amusement. “I didn’t think I would have to deal with old world advertisements here.”  
“It’s not like the company exists in this world, so it’s not much of an advertisement,” Elyse said.

“Fair enough. Why doesn’t the clan sell the cards outside the compound? They could start a card company and really emulate Fusajiro Yamauchi.” Tenten’s lips twitched with mirth.

“What? Since when did Fusajiro Yamauchi start a card company?” asked Elyse. “Was that before or after he founded the clan and how come I never heard of it? I read all his memoirs.”

“No, I meant the real Fusajiro Yamauchi. The one from our first world. Nintendo started out as a hanafuda card company,” Tenten clarified.  
Elyse slumped her shoulders. “The one time I didn’t bother asking which Fusajiro Yamauchi, it was actually the original one.”

The next morning, Elyse dangled her headband in between her thumb and forefinger as she got ready for the chunin exam. She really didn’t want to bring it, but it was required. “Just put the damn thing on,” Diane said testily. She had woken up before sunrise more anxious for the exams than Elyse had ever seen her. Even Elyse’s threats to shut up and let her sleep before she threw Diane’s chain into the bottom of a lake didn’t stop Diane from restlessly pacing around the room.

“But it’s so ridiculous,” Elyse complained. “I don’t want to parade the triforce around like I’m some huge Zelda nerd.”

“You are a Zelda nerd,” Isamu said from the bed. He hadn’t even started getting ready yet. Maybe Elyse should work on getting him and Shikamaru more acquainted. Isamu seemed to get lazier and lazier everyday.

“I’m not a Zelda nerd. I just like the games. An actual Zelda nerd would get offended if I called myself a Zelda nerd. They’d be like ‘If you like Zelda so much, name every single Zelda game in order of release.’ And then I’d have to point out that such knowledge is incredibly useless and they should not be advertising their weird specific knowledge with such pride. I mean if you know that much about a game, then fine, good for you, but don’t act like it’s some kind of wonderful skill and don’t act like I have to waste as much time learning the same thing to call myself a Zelda fan.”

“Speaking from past experience?” Isamu asked with an amused smile when Elyse finished her rant.

“My sister from my past life,” Elyse explained. “She was a bitch. I’m glad I got that off my chest.”

“That was-” Diane paused looking for the right words. “-weird. Just weird. Now, put on the headband. And Isamu, get up and get ready. You guys are being agonizingly slow this morning.”

“We’re taking just as long as we normally do,” Elyse grumbled as she tried to figure out the least intrusive place on her body for a headband to go. “You’re just more impatient this morning.”

Diane snatched the headband from Elyse and tied it around her forehead for her. “There. Problem solved.”

Elyse scrunched her face with displeasure at the weird feeling of having a foreign object covering her forehead. She reached up and moved the plate of the headband to the top of her head. There. That felt a little less weird. Really, Sakura wore her headband in the most convenient way.

“Your turn to get ready, Isamu,” Diane said as she pushed him off the edge of the bed.

After Diane finished berating Isamu into getting ready, the three made their way over to the testing room. As a result of Diane’s pushiness, not many people were in the testing room when they arrived. Only a team from the Land of Rain and Gaara’s team stood in the room. Gaara stood facing the team from Rain with a threatening glower and killing intent pouring from him. The team from Rain tried to pretend not to notice Gaara, but they watched him carefully out of the corner of their eyes. They were not immune to the killing intent.

“Gaara’s natural rate of killing intent is pretty high, huh?” Isamu whispered as he leaned against a wall a safe distance away from the other genin. Diane narrowed her eyes at him.

“Did Elyse put you up to this natural rate of killing intent thing?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Isamu said innocently. “I’m just talking about the long term percentage of killing intent that makes up a portion of a person’s free roaming chakra.”

Diane shook her head at Elyse with her lips pressed tightly together. “I’m not going to believe in your made up thing just because you dragged Isamu into this. Actually, his involvement makes the natural rate of killing intent less believable.”

“It’s real,” Elyse said. She didn’t continue with the convincing speech she had planned because she saw Temari making her way over to them from over Diane’s shoulder.

“What possessed you three to show up so early?” Temari asked as a greeting.

Elyse reached out and placed her hand on Diane’s shoulder. Diane immediately shrugged off her hand. “This one. She’s really excited about the chunin exams.”

“What’s Gaara so upset about?” Diane nodded to said red haired child.

“Oh, it’s the Rain ninja.” Temari sent the Rain ninja a scathing look. “Gaara really doesn’t like filthy water jutsu users.”

“I understand the anger,” Isamu said. “But I think Gaara needs to rein in his temper when it comes to the Rain ninja.” He looked expectantly at Diane who frowned at him in confusion and then shrugged it off.

“Yeah. I don’t think Gaara should be starting fights before the exams even start,” Diane said in agreement.

“He won’t. He knows better than that,” Temari reassured. “Probably. I hope we have a chance to fight those Rain ninja soon though. I wouldn’t mind beating the crap out of a few of them myself. Imagine dumping perfectly good water on the ground with jutsus.”

“It is abhorrent behavior,” Elyse agreed for the sake of keeping the peace. “But maybe that kind of behavior doesn’t necessitate a violent response. They come from a land with an abundance of water. They just don’t realize how important water can be.”

“That’s fine. We’ll just teach them,” Temari said cracking her knuckles. “I’ll get the lesson to sink in, and then they’ll never underestimate the value of water again.”

“Well, alright.” Elyse knew a lost battle when she came across one. The Rain ninja would end up receiving a pummeling from the Kazekage’s children if they crossed paths in the second part of the exams.

“So why did you come early?” Diane asked.

“Gaara wanted to scope out the competition. I think he’s looking for someone he can kill that won’t create an international crisis,” Temari said nonchalantly.

Elyse grimaced back uncomfortably. “And you’re ok with that?”

Temari shrugged. “It’s better if he lets off some steam once in awhile.” Elyse didn’t know what to say to that. She didn’t consider murdering some random person the same as letting off some steam.

“Maybe he should get a stress ball,” Elyse suggested.

“A what?” Temari asked.

“A stress ball. It’s a ball made of squishy material that people squeeze to relieve stress. It’s a lot less messy than crushing a person with sand.”

“I would like it if I didn’t have blood cleaning duty anymore, but somehow, I don’t think Gaara would go for a squishy ball as a replacement for killing people.”

“No, probably not,” Elyse agreed. “I’ll let you know if I come up with a reasonable solution.”

“Thank you,” Temari said. She glanced back at her brothers. “I should get back to my team. Sometimes, Kankuro likes to exacerbate Gaara’s anger for his own amusement. I don’t want Gaara to end up killing the Rain ninja before the exams even start.”

“I don’t want that either. I so don’t want to take the exam with body parts all over the place,” Diane said with disgust. Temari said her goodbyes and went back to her siblings.

“I can’t believe neither of you got my pun,” Isamu said after Temari left.

“What pun?” Elyse asked furrowing her brow. She couldn’t remember Isamu saying anything that could possibly resemble a pun.

“When I said Gaara needs to rein in his temper with the Rain ninja!”

“How in the world is that a pun?”

“Because ‘rein’ and ‘Rain’ sound the same.”

“What?!” Diane exclaimed. “Those two words don’t sound anything alike. What in the world are you talking about?”

“They sound the same in English,” Isamu said exasperatedly.

Diane gaped at him incredulously. “Are you kidding me? You can’t make an English pun while you’re speaking Japanese. That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I have to agree with Diane here,” Elyse said. “If the pun needs to be translated, it doesn’t count as an actual pun.”

“Damn. Really?” Isamu asked.

“Of course not!” Diane yelled briefly drawing the attention of the other six people in the room. She lowered her voice. “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. You can’t be serious.”

Isamu shrugged. “Ok. No more English puns in Japanese.”

“That should go without being said,” Diane said. She looked around the room. “Where is everyone else? I want to meet more Konoha characters. I’ve only met two and one of them is another reincarnated person. She doesn’t count.”

“You just don’t like Tenten because she wouldn’t introduce you to Neji and Lee.” Diane ignored Elyse’s statement.

Diane had to wait a long time for any Konoha characters to come in. Genin slowly started pouring into the room, but they all had Rain, Waterfall, or Sound headbands. When the Sound genin arrived, Diane perked up a little, but she ultimately had no interest in talking to them. Only when team ten arrived did Diane make her move.

“Oh my God! Look who just walked in,” Diane gasped as she seized Elyse’s arm tightly. Elyse looked towards the door and smiled as she saw Ino, Choji, and Shikamaru. It was happening. All the canon characters were gathering together. There was so much chaos to be had.

Elyse’s smile slipped as her arm started to hurt under Diane’s hold. “Ok, you need to let go now.”

Diane startled and looked down at the hand that grasped Elyse’s arm. She released her hold. “Oops. Sorry.” As Elyse rubbed her arm, Diane glanced back over at team ten. “I’ll be back. I’m going to go talk to them.”

“Ok. Don’t be too weird,” Elyse warned. She wouldn’t want Diane to embarrass herself in front of the people from the manga she loved so much.

“Are you sure we should let her go over there alone?” Isamu asked uncertainly as Diane strode off.

Elyse waved him off. “She’ll be fine.”

Shikamaru eyed Diane warily as she approached his team. “You’re that strange girl from yesterday.”

“You know her?” Ino asked.

“Not really,” Diane answered for Shikamaru. “He just did me a small favor yesterday. I’m Diane, by the way.” She held out her hand to Ino.

“I’m Ino,” Ino said shaking Diane’s hand reluctantly. She gave Shikamaru a questioning look. “What favor did you do for her?”

“I don’t know. She wanted me to say something weird.”

“It’s a clan thing,” Diane said dismissively. “And I never got your name.”

“Shikamaru.” Shikamaru shook Diane’s hand with even more reluctance than Ino.

Diane turned to her last target. “And you are?”

Choji finished munching on the chip in his mouth before answering. “I’m Choji.” He brushed his hand off onto his pants before shaking Diane’s hand. At the end of her handshake, Diane had to wipe her own hands off. Choji still had some crumbs and salt on his hand when he shook Diane’s hand. “Sorry about that,” he said as he stuck his hand back into his chip back.

Elyse sighed as she watched over the scene with disdain. She nudged Isamu. “This is what happens when you make eating a personality trait,” she whispered to him. “It becomes significant in every interaction with the person even though it’s such a mundane aspect of life.”

“Are you saying you wouldn’t read a manga if the main character was a guy that just ate all the time?” Isamu asked with a snicker.

“I have absolutely no interest in a story like that.”

Elyse had to end her conversation with Isamu as Diane blurted out, “Can I have your guys’ autographs?”

“Wow. Excuse me, I have to go save Diane from her current situation.” Elyse made her way over to her friend as team ten stared at Diane with varying expressions of shock.

“Our autographs?” Ino asked as if she couldn’t believe she heard Diane correctly.

Elyse forced a laugh from her mouth as she reached her destination. “Don’t mind her. She enjoys teasing rookie genin. Diane, leave the rookies alone.”

Diane laughed nervously. “Of course! Just a joke! Bye!” Diane practically ran from team ten leaving them in a state of bemusement. Elyse followed right behind her not interested in trying to further explain things to team ten.

“I changed my mind. Keep me away from the rest of the characters,” Diane murmured to Elyse and Isamu. “I’m never going to recover from that.”

Elyse patted Diane’s back comfortingly. “I think you successfully played it off as a joke.” Behind Diane’s back she shook her head at Isamu mouthing, “No, she didn’t.”

True to her word, Diane stayed put when Tenten’s team came in and even when team eight came in, but her resolve dissolved as team seven entered the room. “I need to talk to them,” she said determinedly.

“Um, I’m pretty sure canon is about to start,” Isamu pointed out.

Diane faltered, but then squared her shoulders. “It can wait a little bit.”

“Oooo, I’m going too,” Elyse said excitedly. “There’s always something I wanted to tell Sakura.”

The two quickly walked towards team seven. Out of the corner of her eye, Elyse noticed Ino stopping in her tracks as she spotted them walking over. Elyse wondered if Diane realized this was changing canon or if she was too focused on meeting the title character to even think of that.

Each member of team seven had a different reaction when Elyse and Diane stopped in front of them. Sakura shrank back behind her teammates looking a bit frightened, Sasuke narrowed his eyes at their headbands in suspicion, and Naruto pointed a finger at them before yelling, “If you’re coming over here for a fight, we’ll take you on easily.”

Elyse chuckled and glanced at Diane. Diane was just staring openly at Naruto eyes wide and mouth agape. Elyse gripped her shoulder. “Get a hold of yourself,” she said through gritted teeth. To Naruto, she said, “We don’t want to fight anyone. I just had something to say. To her.”

As Elyse gestured towards Sakura, the pink haired girl gave a squeak. Gathering herself together, Sakura stepped forward and tried not to show how apprehensive she was. “I don’t want to join your cult.” Sakura’s eyes widened, and she waved her hands frantically. “I mean your clan. I don’t want to join your clan.”

Elyse resisted the urge to roll her eyes. So Sakura was one of those people that thought the Nintendo clan kidnapped children and forced them into the clan. “I’m not trying to get you to join our clan. You don’t meet our qualifications anyways. I just wanted to tell you that you shouldn’t date or marry guys that try to kill you.”

Sakura blinked back in astonishment. “Well, that’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?”

“You would think,” Elyse said.

Sakura stared back at Elyse for a while waiting for her to explain herself. “So, uh, is that all?”

“Yeah, I suppose so. Just remember what I said.” Elyse would probably have to do more to prevent Sakura and Sasuke from getting together, but hopefully, this would have a bit of an effect.

“Hey, wait a second,” Diane said from beside her as she slowly started to get out of her Naruto induced trance. “Did you just say what I think you said to who I think you just said it to?”

“Wait, who are you people?” Naruto asked pointing his finger at Elyse and Diane again. “Why did you come over here and say strange things to Sakura? And what is that weird symbol on your headbands?”

“Naruto, that’s the symbol for the Nintendo clan,” Sakura said impatiently.

“The Nintendo clan? Never heard of them,” Naruto said. His two teammates adopted identical expressions of disbelief.

“Naruto, how do you avoid hearing about the most basic of things?” Sakura sounded slightly impressed by Naruto’s pervasive ignorance.

Naruto laughed nervously and scratched the back of his head. “Oh! The Nintendo clan. Yep, I’ve totally heard of them.”

Meanwhile, Diane tugged on Elyse’s arm and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “We shouldn’t be here right now. Canon is supposed to be happening right now! This isn’t canon!”

As if to dispute her words, Kabuto came over to the group. “You guys should consider lowering your voices. You’re attracting a lot of attention.” Diane yelped and hurriedly dragged Elyse away from the canon moment.

“Everything’s fine,” Elyse assured once they were back with Isamu. “See, it’s all continuing how it’s supposed to.” It wouldn’t be for long if Elyse got her way, but for now, canon still seemed to be on track.

Elyse’s real plan for changing canon started when the exam started. She chose her target two days ago after five seconds of deliberation. If she wanted to make team seven fail the exam, Naruto was the obvious choice for her. She had to fail them in a way that wouldn’t get traced back to her which meant using a widely known genjutsu that increased feelings of fear and thus desperation. That made Naruto the right choice for two reasons. One, he currently had almost no skill with identifying and dispelling genjutsu. Two, he didn’t have a skill set that enabled him to cheat without getting caught by the chunin watching the exam.

While Elyse kept an eye on Naruto after casting her genjutsu, she worked on the test in front of her to blend in. Even for a relatively intelligent person that lived a collective 35 years, the questions were difficult. Not that it mattered. Her team had to fail the test anyways, and people could pass without getting any answers right on the test. That was a major flaw in the test in Elyse’s eyes. This part of the test was designed to ensure that the genin who made it through had the ability to gather information without detection, but anyone could pass without doing anything. If a test failed to test what it was supposed to, then it didn’t work as a test.

Naruto started sweating and twitching nervously in his seat. Any minute now, he would feel desperate enough to try cheating. There it was. Naruto looked over Hinata’s test answers with the subtlety of a skilled civilian. Not enough to avoid detection from the chunin or to warrant them overlooking his transgression. Just a bit longer now. Elyse’s hand shook with excitement as she scribbled down some nonsense onto her paper, too filled with anticipation to properly work out a problem.

“Number 4, fail,” one of the chunin from the side said.

There was a beat of silence and then a horrified “What!” rang out from four different people; Tenten, Sakura, Naruto, and Diane. As Naruto left the room with an angry Sasuke and Sakura at his heels, Elyse looked at Tenten who stared blankly ahead of her with disbelief and Diane who actually stood up staring in the direction of the door team seven exited through. Isamu had already turned back to his test after giving team seven a brief, curious look.

“Number 17, sit down before you fail the test,” an examiner said to Diane. Diane took one look at the examiner and then marched out of the room. Isamu and Elyse exchanged glances.

“Shall we, then?” Isamu asked. Elyse nodded and followed after Diane with Isamu. She could hardly believe it. She had done it. She changed canon and not in some ridiculous, insignificant way like getting someone to eat breakfast. She caused the main character to fail the first part of the chunin exams. That arc, at least, was completely ruined.


	4. Chapter 4

“Wait!” Isamu called out to Diane as Elyse and him exited the test room. Further along the way, Diane halted and turned back to her two friends.

“What do we do?” Diane asked despairingly as Isamu and Elsye reached her.

“First, we have to see who won the card game. Isamu said that as soon as we leave the exam room, we check the cards,” Elyse said matter of factly.

Diane looked back and forth between Elyse and Isamu incredulously. “Are you serious?” They nodded. “We have much more pressing matters at hand! The whole world has been turned on its head!”

“We have to check the cards. It’s one of the only rules for this game,” Isamu said with a frown as Elyse nodded emphatically next to him.

Diane threw up her hands in exasperation. “Fine. I have three aces. I win.” She pulled out her cards and tossed them at the ground in front of Isamu and Elyse. Elyse looked down at the cards. Huh, she really did have all three aces. Diane must be getting better at theft. Elyse hadn’t noticed her ace getting stolen, and she was sure she still had it that morning. When had she taken it?

“Actually, I win,” Isamu said. “I have a royal flush.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a scroll, and applied chakra to it. Nothing happened.

Casually, Elyse took out some cards and fanned them in front of her, face up towards Isamu. “Looking for these?” she asked.

“Ok, what’s going on?” Diane asked momentarily distracted from the Naruto catastrophe by the unexpected cards. “None of those cards were the cards that were dealt out.”

“Of course not. Isamu pulled these out of the deck and hid them before he proposed the game to us. I figured it out and stole them from him without him noticing,” Elyse said smugly.

“I thought I had it in the bag,” Isamu said shaking his head.

“You can’t use cards that weren’t dealt out at the start of the game,” Diane said.

“I can. There’s no rule against it,” Elyse pointed out. “You always have to root out the loopholes, Diane.”

Diane sighed. “Never mind. This is ridiculous. You win. Now, can we please go find Ryuu and figure out what to do about the sky that’s falling?”

“Ok, ok. No need to be so dramatic,” Elyse said gesturing for Diane to lead the way.

After Diane told Ryuu what happened through hysterical ramblings, Ryuu stood up from his seat on the couch summoning a pen and paper. “My bonus is definitely going to get deducted,” Ryuu muttered grumpily as he wrote out a message.

“Your bonus?” Daine repeated incredulously. “Is that what you’re worrying about at a time like this?”

“Yes,” Ryuu said folding up the message he just finished writing and stashing it somewhere in his vest. “I have to go send this. You three wait here and do nothing until I come back.”

Diane stared at the door swinging shut with a discomfited expression. “Am I only one that appreciates how monumental this is? The main characters failed the first round of the chunin exams. The future could become unrecognizable because of this. If nothing else, the matchups in the preliminaries and finals will be different. Or maybe there won’t even be preliminaries. And what if Orochimaru doesn’t even give Sasuke the curse seal now?”

“I’m sure Orochimaru will still mark Sasuke. Sasuke still has the sharingan, and that’s ultimately what Orochimaru was after,” Elyse said. She’d thought a lot about what the repercussions would be, and she felt sure that Sasuke missing out on the curse was not one of them. 

On the other hand, Naruto missing out on learning the toads summon from Jiraiya was a distinct possibility. Elyse didn’t know how much Jiraiya planned to get involved with his dead student’s son when he arrived in Konoha, but she refused to believe he only decided to teach the boy due to the naked woman jutsu. Even so, he might not want to pass on the summoning contract to a genin that couldn’t even make past the first part of the chunin exams especially not if Jiraiya had only agreed to teach Naruto to prepare him for the finals. Without more information about Jiraiya’s original motivations concerning Naruto, Elyse couldn’t tell whether that particular part of canon would play out. All she knew was that Naruto’s toad summon had a significant part in the upcoming arc. Its absence would surely cause a permanent change.

The toad summons were only one of the possible alterations in canon to result from the exam failure. Neji couldn’t go up against Naruto in the finals which meant he wouldn’t have some sense knocked into him unless he somehow managed to face another person equally as capable as Naruto at rehabilitating opponents during fights. Shikamaru might face someone that doesn’t give him the opportunity to impress the judges and never make chunin. A team that didn’t originally make it out of the Forest of Death might. Sakura and Ino hadn’t yet reconciled though Elyse wasn’t sure that had any significance to the plot. Lastly, Kakashi surely wouldn’t teach Sasuke the chidori without the threat of Gaara looming over Sasuke. As such, Elyse felt secure in her assumption that canon could not recover from this blow.

Diane brought up all these concerns with a pessimistic overture leading into a possible future where Lee ended up taking over the world, forcing everyone to wear green jumpsuits. “While I do agree that there will be unforeseen consequences to this change-” Elyse interrupted before Diane could continue outlining her Lee-lead world. “-I highly doubt that anything will result in Lee taking over the world.”

“You never know,” Diane said shakily. “That’s the whole point. Anything can happen now.”

“Anything but that,” Elyse said firmly.

“Well, hopefully.” Diane frowned at Elyse and Isamu. “Why aren’t you two more concerned about this?”

“I’m concerned,” Elyse said. She was concerned. Just because she wanted to change canon and had purposely done so did not mean she wasn’t worried about what the results of her meddling might be. “I just don’t think there’s any point in fretting over it.”

“Well, I’m not,” Isamu said. Diane gaped at him while Elyse nodded to herself. She had an inkling Isamu never got on board with the canon love. 

“How can you say that?” Diane asked Isamu.

“I have no stakes in this. I’m just an observer. I’m curious to see how this turns out.”

“Fine. You always were strange anyways.” Diane turned to Elyse with an upset expression. “Did we cause this? By going over to team seven before the start of the exam?”

Elyse pressed her lips together. She wished she could assuage Diane’s guilt, but she had no desire to admit to her culpability in the situation. “Maybe. There’s no real point in trying to deduce the point of divergence. All we can do now is wait for the clan to give us orders for how to deal with this.”

“Ok.” Diane sat down on a couch in the room and placed her head in her hands. “I can’t help feeling partially responsible for this.”

Isamu sat next to Diane and awkwardly placed a comforting hand on her back. “Listen, I don’t think a short conversation could have any sort of effect on canon. Think about it. If canon could be changed so easily, it should already have changed by now. I mean, a whole clan that didn’t exist before plopped itself into the second most mentioned village in the story without any differences to canon. A conversation is nothing compared to that.”

Isamu had a point, and he didn’t even know about Mitsuko’s failed efforts to prevent the Uchiha massacre. Suddenly, Elyse felt more than a little unnerved. How had canon held up for so long when changing it was as easy as casting a simple genjutsu? Surely, she and Mitsuko weren’t the only people to have ever tried changing canon drastically. Even if they were, the existence of the Nintendo clan alone should have inadvertently changed something by now. If not that, then the presence of another living Uchiha seemed like something that would be cause for deviation. 

“Well, clearly something changed canon. What do you think caused it if not us interacting with the main characters?” Diane asked looking up at Isamu pleadingly.

“Probably a cumulation of all the changes that already happened due to the presence of reincarnated people,” Isamu said. 

“Maybe,” Diane said doubtfully. “I guess the why isn’t as important as how to fix it. I hope the clan leaders come up with a plan for setting things back to normal.”

Elyse held back her reply as the door opened and Ryuu stepped through looking exhausted. “I just spoke with Juanita,” he announced. “We’re to stick to our original mission until told otherwise.”

“Our original mission?” Elyse scratched her head in confusion. “You mean finding out why Sasuke ate breakfast? I thought we already decided that his eating breakfast didn’t contradict canon.”

“Actually, ever since I suggested the idea to Juanita, the clan leaders have been locked into debate on whether or not a heavy implication in the manga is as good as an outright statement,” Ryuu said with a slightly amused smile.

“They’ve been locked in debate for two days? How could there be enough argumental points about this to carry on a debate for two days?” Elyse asked. She knew the clan had invested a lot of time into Sasuke’s breakfast eating habits lately, but it just didn’t seem like anyone could hold a long debate about whether he did or did not eat breakfast in the manga. For Elyse, it was an open and shut case. The answer was, ‘Who cares?’

“Trust me. There’s plenty of points to talk over. They have diagrams and graphs. They have citations and drawings from the manga. They have analyses from professional psychologists and writers,” Ryuu listed off holding up a finger for each point he made.

“Ok. Hold up a second,” Elyse said putting up a hand. “I’m going to need to hear what graphs could possibly be used in these debates and how an analysis from a psychologist could help.”

“Well, someone put together a graph listing the amount of hours after eating it takes for different people to grow hungry enough for their stomach to growl. There was another graph measuring the amount of food it usually takes to fill someone up and how that changes the number of hours till stomach growling. The statistics found that Sasuke’s food intake that morning should have kept him properly satisfied past the point of Kakashi’s arrival.”

“Wow,” Elyse said impressed with the amount of time and effort her clanmates were willing to put into the matter. Members of the Nintendo clan definitely had too much time on their hands. “And the psychologists?”

“Oh, yes,” Ryuu said nodding. “They give very important testimony. First, they provide information on the longevity of human memory and whether we collectively could have misremembered parts of the manga. Second, they analyze Kishimoto’s psychological state from his writing and try to determine if he would count an implication as fact in his story.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Elyse saw Isamu cover his mouth before a laugh could sneak out. “Has anyone considered consulting a translator to make sure nothing was lost in the translation of the manga from Japanese to English?” Isamu asked keeping his voice surprisingly steady for someone that was on the verge of laughter.

Ryuu scoffed. “Of course. That’s one of the first things they looked into.”

“So what was the conclusion?” Diane asked looking less upset about her possible involvement in the ruination of canon and more intrigued by the results of the debate.

“Well, after much discourse, the clan leaders eventually decided that there was no way to tell for sure what Sasuke did or did not eat the morning of the bell test,” Ryuu said.

“Good thing they spent all that time debating it then, huh?” Elyse asked sarcastically.

Ryuu frowned at her. “Yes, actually. Otherwise, they would have just accepted the premise that Sasuke eating breakfast was still within canon and then we wouldn’t get to continue the mission. Juanita said that I can still get my bonus if we get to the bottom of this breakfast matter.”

“Ok,” Diane said. “I don’t particularly care about your bonus at all, but I want to do what I can to figure out what has gone wrong with canon.”

“I agree with Diane,” Elyse said slowly. “But onto other matters, why are you always so obsessed with getting double pay and bonuses, Ryuu? I’ve seen your house. It’s tiny, and the inside is bare. You never go on vacation. You’re the most frugal person I know. What do you plan to do with all your money?”

“I put it all in my bank account,” Ryuu said simply.

“But for what purpose? What are you saving up for?”

Ryuu scratched his head. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m not saving up for anything. I just want to make sure I have enough money.”

Elyse sighed. “Ok. Let me rephrase the question. Are you planning on just continuously piling up money into your bank account until you die? You already have more money than most people make in their lifetime. It’s not really good for the economy to have all that money in stasis rather than circulating. Besides, you can retire right now and live comfortably instead of doing work you don’t really enjoy.”

“Maybe, but I need to keep building my supply of money in case of an emergency.”

Elyse gave up. “Never mind. How are we proceeding with this Sasuke breakfast investigation?”

“We should probably talk to Tenten more,” Diane piped up. “She can tell us exactly what Guy said about what he saw that morning.”

“Tenten’s still taking the chunin exams,” Isamu pointed out.

Diane frowned. “Oh. Right. Maybe we can go straight to the source and ask Guy.”

“And make him suspicious of us? No,” Ryuu said firmly. “We’ll just be observing from the shadows. We don’t want to do anything that will draw attention to us especially considering that we’re from the village about to invade Konoha.”

The next days passed by uneventfully with them carefully keeping tabs on team seven and the village in general. Team seven proceeded with their training as normal for a genin train. Nothing seemed odd about the village as a whole.

Diane could barely get herself to go anywhere near can characters or locations anymore becoming paranoid about inadvertently changing canon. Her mental breakdown was shared by most of the rest of the Nintendo clan according to Ryuu’s recaps of his communications with Juanita. They seem to be divided on the issue. Around half the clan thought canon could still be salvaged, and they needed to throw all their efforts into making sure later parts of canon prevailed. The other half thought canon was irreparably damaged. Of that half, some took the opportunity to broach the idea of interfering to stop the more dangerous ninja before they could implement their plans. The rest slid into a bit of depression with a ‘What’s the point?’ kind of attitude. 

The members of the clan that wanted to restore canon and the members that advocated for building off of the change created factions in the clan. Ryuu informed Elyse and Isamu that the two different factions spent hours of the day presenting their sides to each other. Diane was moping in her room again. “Are there graphs and diagrams? There had better be graphs and diagrams,” Elyse said. She desperately wished she could be back in the compound to witness all those arguments firsthand. 

“The salvage faction made a large scale timeline with numerous branches for all the ways the changing point could result in a worse world. The other faction took up the timeline and added positive possible branches to it,” Ryuu replied.

“Do one of the branches involve Lee taking over the world and forcing everyone to wear green jumpsuits?” Elyse asked.

Ryuu wrinkled his forehead in a puzzled frown. “Not that I know of. I didn’t ask too much about the specifics.” 

“Diane will be disappointed,” Elyse giggled.

“She can add that branch herself when we go back,” Isamu quipped.

Elyse learned that Tenten sided more with the more cynical members of the Nintendo clan when she got back from the second rounds of the chunin exams. Tenten met up with the four other reincarnated people in Konoha in the same place they originally met. Once there, she started in on her rant. 

“So I went down to fight my preliminary match against Ino and I just thought, ‘Why? Why bother?’ I wasn’t supposed to face Ino in the first place. That was supposed to be Sakura. It didn’t matter what I did, the whole fight wasn’t canon. So then I thought, ‘Why should I even try to become a chunin?’ I never wanted to be a ninja. Don’t get me wrong. I love duels and weapons competitions, but I can’t stand real battle. If I hadn’t been so set on preserving canon, I never would have agreed to take the chunin exams in the first place. Hell, I never would have agreed to take the academy exit exam. So I backed away from Ino, held up my hand, and forfeited. In retrospect, it wasn’t the greatest of ideas because then I had to deal with Guy and Lee yelling about how unyouthful quitting was, but I’m glad it’s done with.”

“You… you faced Ino and quit the chunin exams,” Diane stuttered out in a strangled voice. 

“Yup,” Tenten chirped. She then snorted. “She totally decided that it was because I was intimidated by her too. She’ll have a rude awakening in the finals.”

“Oh, God, what’s happening?” Diane moaned to herself.

“Never mind all that,” Ryuu broke in. “Did Guy tell you anything more about the morning Sasuke ate breakfast? Maybe there was something unusual. Did Sasuke deliberate for awhile before choosing to eat breakfast?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Tenten threw up her arms. “It was a lie. Guy’s weird, but he didn’t watch a team of genin for a whole morning. I was bored, ok. I spent my whole second life playing a role, following whatever the Hokage, my sensei, or Mr. Peterson told me to do. I just got sick of it one day, and that’s when the idea came to my mind. It was very amusing for me to imagine the clan having a minor freakout over Sasuke’s eating habits, so I fibbed a bit. I didn’t think anything would come of it, just a short little panic that subsided once the clan realized nothing else different happened, but then they sent you guys and now we’re in this mess.”

Elyse put a comforting hand on Diane’s back as she started making small choking noises. “So Sasuke didn’t eat breakfast that morning?”

“I don’t know!” Tenten cried. “I don’t have that information. I’m sorry I lied about it. Everything is my fault.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Isamu said. Did Elyse imagine it or did Isamu send her a sidelong look? “My theory is that this is a cumulation of the effect of the addition of every reincarnated person to the world.” 

Tenten perked up. “Very interesting. Do you have anything to back that theory up?”

“Nope,” Isamu admitted. Tenten wilted again.

“Ok. I’m going to need to contact Juanita again,” Ryuu said wearily.

For the next few days, they kept up the watch for any suspicious activity finding just as much as they had the first few days. It ended when Ryuu entered the genin’s room in the middle of the night and awakened by shaking them. “What’s going on?” asked Elyse as she stumbled out of the bed. 

Diane blinked sleepily up at the ceiling. “Team seven failing the chunin exam. Was that a dream? Please tell me it was.”

“I’m afraid not,” Ryuu said grimly. “All of you get up, get ready, and pack. Juanita’s calling us back to the compound. The whole clan is in a state of crisis, and they’ve decided that our presence isn’t helping matters in anyway.”

“Even the faction that wants to change canon now?” Elyse inquired.

“Yes. They want to change canon by taking out guys like Zetsu and Obito, not by inadvertent changes that negatively affect the main characters,” Ryuu answered.   
“Come on. Hurry up. I want to beat the heat.”

“What does the heat matter at a time like this?” Diane asked in a monotone voice still staring stiffly up at the ceiling.

“It makes me sweaty, itchy, and uncomfortable. My comfort matters at all times even times of crisis,” Ryuu proclaimed. “Which means I’m not going to let your existential meltdown delay our departure. I expect the three of you to be ready within ten minutes.” Ryuu swiftly left the room.

“He’s in a mood,” Diane complained as she sat up.

“You’re one to talk,” Elyse pointed out. She turned to Isamu who still had his eyes closed and prodded him. “Come on, Isamu. Time to get up.”

Isamu opened an eye to stare at Elyse suspiciously. “What are you so eager for?”

“I want to get home. I was getting homesick.” In truth, Elyse was excited to suss out the faction that wanted to take a more active role in the world. If they gained enough influence, Elyse would get what she wanted all along.

The return trip was a lot more tense than the trip to Konoha had been. Ryuu again insisted on scouting out ahead leaving Isamu, Elyse, and Diane to keep each other company. Isamu and Elyse tried to continue their banter from the first journey, but it didn’t feel right with Diane’s new depressed and silent persona. Maybe the whole trip was less annoying, but it was also much more miserable.

Upon entering the compound, the group was ambushed by a crowd of clanmates and bombarded with questions and accusations. As the sensei of the group, Ryuu fielded the questions and deflected the accusations. Diane kept her gaze on the ground, Elyse watched the scene with a wry grin, and Isamu looked on with interest.   
After debriefing to Juanita and the rest of the clan leaders, the genin split ways and returned to their homes.

“Elyse, we’re so glad you’re home,” Eri said pulling Elyse into a tight hug. “I’m sorry you went through such an ordeal.”

When Eri released Elyse, Haru took his turn. “Don’t ever think this is your fault. We never should have sent genin no matter how skilled your team was.”

Elyse patted Haru’s back comfortingly before stepping back. “Don’t worry. I don’t think it’s my fault. I’ve taken on Isamu’s theory that the change was caused by a cumulation of influence by people like us.”

Haru rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “That’s an interesting theory. Do you have any evidence to support it?”

“Not a bit,” Elyse said cheerfully before turning to her little brother. “Hey, kid. I couldn’t get you an Inuzuka ninja dog because I didn’t want to get thrown into the Konoha prison, but I did get you a piece of fur from one.”

Kei looked scornfully at the proffered fur. “If you actually got that fur from an Inuzuka dog, you’ve gone way too far for a joke.”

Elyse grinned and shoved the fur into Kei’s hand. He dropped it immediately. “It’s not polite to turn down a gift, Kei.”

“One of you better clean up that fur,” Eri scolded. 

“Don’t worry. Kei will clear it up. It’s his after all.”

“Elyse, why?” Kei asked with exasperation.

“Why what? That’s too vague.” Nevertheless, Elyse scooped up the fur and threw it away. “It’s good to be back.” Maybe she had been a bit homesick. 

The next morning, Elyse awoke to yelling and shouting. Shooting up out of her bed, Elyse threw on some clothes and exited to the living room. “What’s going on?” she asked Eri who looked a little pale.

Eri turned an anxious gaze to Elyse. “Kisame just arrived at the clan compound.” 

“Kisame,” Elyse repeated disbelievingly. “The fish man that’s a member of the Akatsuki? The one that’s partnered up with Itachi? The one with the giant sword?” 

“That’s the one.”

“What in the world is he doing here? Don’t tell me he’s reincarnated too.”

“I have nothing to tell you if I can’t tell you that,” Eri grumbled.

“Wow.” First Tenten and now Kisame. Just how many canon characters were reincarnated and how had that not already destroyed canon? “Why did he come here? He hasn’t visited the compound before, has he?”

“No,” Eri said with a sad shake of the head. “He’s one of those that gave up on canon once Naruto failed the first part of the chunin exam. He refuses to associate with Akatsuki or act as Kisame any longer. Haru just left to go to a meeting on what to do about Kisame’s refusal to comply with canon.”

“What can they do? Surely, they can’t force the guy to continue playing the part of Kisame.”

Eri sighed. “I don’t know. I just hope they figure out something. Everything’s been such a mess since the change. Half of the clan refuses to speak with the other half of the clan. A fight breaks out in the streets every other day. I’m sure the whole city has noticed the division in the clan by now. A couple houses burned down the previous morning.”

Elyse raised her brows. “How is burning houses down going to help anything?”

“Well, one of the houses was an ugly yellowish brown mixture, so it’s perishing improved the visual appeal of the compound greatly. Other than that, it doesn’t,” Eri mused.

“The house near the park that has the dinosaur slide?” Eri nodded. “Good riddance. So what’s the consensus of the clan leaning towards? I’m guessing since they’re trying to convince Kisame to carry on with canon that they want to salvage canon as much as they can.”

“For the most part.” Eri leaned forward in her seat. “The support for taking on the bad guys of Naruto is growing rapidly. I think a lot of the younger clan members have dreams of heroism. Besides, many have given up on the idea of keeping canon in tact.”

“Pity,” Elyse commented lightly. On the inside, she was smirking in satisfaction.

“I don’t know,” Eri confessed. “Don’t tell Haru, but I’m starting to think those members of the clan are right. I don’t see how canon can come back from this blow. I’m not completely sold on facing ridiculously powered ninja, but I also don’t see the point in trying to hold back water from gushing out of a 50 inch diameter hole with one hand.”

“You’ve got a point,” Elyse said slowly. She hadn’t expected either Haru or Eri to turn on canon, so this was a pleasant surprise for her. 

After eating a quick breakfast, Elyse rushed off to find Mitsuko. She wondered what she thought about this whole thing. As expected, Mitsuko was waiting in her home for Elyse. “Welcome back,” Mitsuko greeted with a smile as she held the front door open.

Elyse slipped into the house and sat on the couch. “I did it, Mitsuko. I changed canon.”

“Oh, did canon change? You’d think the clan would make some sort of uproar about it.” The two laughed. “So how’d you do it? How did you manage what I failed at so many years ago?”

Elyse frowned. “I’m not sure. It was really simple. During the written exam, I cast a genjutsu on Naruto to increase his nerves, and he succumbed to the pressure.”

“Hmm.” Mitsuko furrowed her brows. “That seems a little too easy.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Elyse said. “But maybe it was just timing or something. Or maybe there’s an adequate explanation for why your letter had no effect.”

“Maybe,” Mitsuko conceded. “But the only people alone that might have that explanation are Sasuke and Itachi, and I’m certainly not asking them. Especially not Itachi.”

Mitsuko hated Itachi for killing or being an accomplice to the killing of Mitsuko’s nephew. It was more than a legitimate enough reason for Elyse. “I heard from Eri that the mood of the clan is shifting towards giving up on canon.”

Mitsuko snorted. “That’s the direction it’s headed in now. It’s been going back and forth for the past week and a half. The recent argument that canon results in a kid named Boruto has swayed the clan slightly towards changing canon for the better.”

“That’s a solid point. I hadn’t thought of that. Has anyone brought up that Sasuke and Sakura get married in canon?” Elyse asked.

“That was four days ago, Elyse. Don’t rehash old points. I’ve seen it backfire every time. Besides, some like that pairing, so the argument had the opposite effect on them.”

Elyse met Kisame the next day when she went out for lunch with Isamu at an outdoor taco shop. Diane was still hiding out in her parents house in misery, so it was just the two of them that day. Elyse and Isamu had only just sat down with their tacos when Kisame walked over to the window of the taco shop and ordered 36 chicken tacos. 

“So you’re Kisame?” Elyse greeted as Kisame leant against the side of the little building to wait for his large order of food.

Kisame peeked up at her with a scowl. “I don’t use that name anymore. I’m Allen. That was my name in my first life.” Elyse glanced over the large, blue tinged, shark man with sharp teeth thinking that the name Allen really didn’t fit the visual. Far be it from Elyse to refuse to call someone by their chosen name though.

“Ok, Allen.” The name came out with a struggle. Elyse couldn’t connect the name to the man without effort.

Allen beamed showing his rows of sharpened teeth. “You’re the first person to take me up on that. Everyone else keeps insisting on calling me Kisame. Thank you so much.”

“Yeah. Sure. No problem,” Elyse said exchanging disturbed looks with Isamu. She turned her focus back to Allen. “I’m Elyse. This is Isamu.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” Allen said politely. 

“So, Allen-” The name didn’t come out any smoother the second time. “-are the clan leaders letting you stay here?”

“Nope,” Allen said cheerfully. “I’m staying here against their wishes. They can’t do anything to make me follow the canon Kisame, so I can do whatever I want, and I’m choosing to stay here. There’s so much from Earth here. I’ve been missing out by travelling around doing the Akatsuki’s bidding when I could have been eating tacos everyday. Do you know how long it’s been since I had a taco?”

“No, I’m actually not privy to that information,” Elyse said. “Considering I’ve never even seen you before.”

“It’s been a long time.” Allen stared at the taco in front of Elyse hungrily. “A very long time.”

“Couldn’t you have just found a way to make your own tacos?” Isamu asked.

“Of course not. Canon Kisame never made tacos. Probably. At least, I wasn’t allowed to risk it. There’s so many things I missed out on trying to copy the original Kisame. I was a chef in my first life. I wanted to open up a cajun restaurant, but I couldn’t because I had to become a ninja and a swordsman and then join a criminal organization.”

“I’m glad I wasn’t reincarnated into a manga character,” Isamu said insensitively before finishing off his last taco. “Sounds restrictive.”

“Kisame Hoshigaki, your order is ready!” a voice called from the window of the shop.

“It’s Allen, dammit!” Allen yelled. He snatched his food from the counter and turned to Elyse and Isamu. “I guess I’ll see you two kids around. I have some tacos to devour.” Elyse watched Allen walk off feeling a bit perturbed by the whole interaction. Expectation did not meet reality when it came to that man.

Juanita called for a clan wide meeting later that day so everyone could have their voices heard about the crisis. The meeting started with Mr. Peterson taking the stand and giving a lecture on the history of the clan and its foundation based on preserving the sanctity of canon. At the end of his speech, he received a thunderous applause, but Elyse noted a significant amount of people abstaining from the applause. The tides in the clan were changing.

After Mr. Peterson’s speech, a woman Elyse hardly knew took the stand with a team of people carrying a large board up to the stand behind her. The woman, Esha Naidu, was part of the clan council, so Elyse expected her to side with Mr. Peterson. Her expectations were not met. “According to the first law of Isamu’s Theory of Accumulation,” Esha started. Elyse jerked her head back in surprise and sought out Isamu in the crowd. He stood a distance away from her looking up at Esha in amusement. “The change in canon was inevitable from the very start. With so many people that don’t belong here, the pressure built up against canon until it could no longer hold. We can continue trying to repair canon, but the fact is it’s destined to collapse.”

A roar erupted through the crowd as people loudly protested the idea that canon couldn’t be saved. Arguments broke out in different clusters. “Hold up, hold up!” A loud voice carried out over the mutterings. An old man pushed his way through the crowd to stand in front of the stand. “The second law of Isamu’s Theory of Accumulation states that reincarnated persons only have an effect on canon if we stray near a being or area mentioned in canon. If we all relocate far outside of the elemental nations, we’ll stop affecting canon.”

A second series of outraged roars swept through the crowd. The Nintendo clan might hate the idea of possibly altering canon, but they reacted more strongly against leaving their homes. They’d built their lives there, and they couldn’t imagine living anywhere else but Sunagakure.

Elyse navigated her way through her clanmates to reach Isamu. “What is going on?” she whispered. “Why the hell are they talking about a theory with your name in it?”

“Well,” Isamu started. “I mentioned my theory to a few people, and they ran with it. Before I knew what was going on, the theory had a name and three laws attached to it. They started using it in clan arguments.”

“It’s been one full day. How can they already use the made up theory in arguments after only a day of existence?”

Isamu shrugged. “The clan works efficiently when it comes to arguing about canon.” 

“So it seems,” Elyse cut off as Juanita took the stage shunting Esha aside.

“Everybody quiet,” Juanita demanded. Abruptly, the noise died down. “Thank you. Esha has the stage right now, and I would appreciate it if everyone let her have her say without interruption from this point on. These are crucial times in our clan. We need to be at our best right now. If we can’t even stand together to have a civil discourse, how can we manage to restore canon or change the world for the better? Whatever option we end up choosing, we will need to be united. If we break apart now, we have no hope when we end up facing more arduous trials. So Esha, please continue.”

The crowd cheered for Juanita’s words as Esha stepped back into center stage. “Thank you, Juanita, for your words.” She then addressed the crowd. “As you can see from the chart in the upper right hand corner of the board behind me, four out of five Sunans surveyed say they prefer to not enter a fourth shinobi world war within the next five years.”

Elyse stopped listening to Esha’s words as Diane approached her and Isamu. Elyse looked over Diane. She didn’t look well. Diane’s face was stuck in a constantly morose expression, and she had dark circles under her eyes as if she hadn’t slept in days. Elyse decided to just ask her. “Diane, when did you last sleep?”

The corner of Diane’s mouth twitched upwards. “I pulled an all nighter last night, but I slept the night before that.” Elyse opened her mouth to show more of her concern, but Diane barreled on. “I need to talk to the two of you. Away from here. Somewhere private.”

Elyse caught Isamu’s gaze. He looked as worried as she felt. “I never thought you would willingly miss a clan meeting,” Isamu said to Diane.

Diane just shook her head and started moving through the crowd. “Come on. It’s important.”

Elyse weaved through the crowd behind Diane as potential reasons for Diane’s impromptu call for a private talk bounced around her head. Diane looked pretty upset.   
Maybe she heard somewhere that Lee got the idea for world domination into his head. Before Elyse guessed where they were going, she realized Diane brought her and Isamu to Carpaccio’s.

“Why are we going to an Italian restaurant to talk?” Elyse asked feeling a great sense of deja vu.

“I don’t know. It just felt right,” Diane muttered opening the door to the restaurant and holding it open. Elyse and Isamu slipped in and took a seat at the closest table.

“Alright. What’s this about?” Elyse asked as Diane took her own seat.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since the change,” Diane began slowly making sure to meet both Elyse’s and Isamu’s gazes intermittently. “When it first happened, I felt afraid and guilty. I was sure that we had caused it, and I hated myself for it. I loathe to admit it, but I was angry with you two too. We all talked to canon characters, and none of us made an effort to stop each other. It was careless, and we were paying the consequences for our mistakes.

“Once I got over the self blame, I started thinking about what those consequences actually were. That was what I feared most. My whole life I knew what was going to happen in the future. I felt assured in the stability of my life because I felt that nothing unexpected could get thrown in my way. It was naive, I know, especially since the future I knew had little to do with the day to day going ons of my own life, but that’s how I felt. When that knowledge was ripped away from me, I was lost. I didn’t know how to continue on without knowing the future, but then I thought that’s what your lives were like before you were reincarnated. That’s how life is for anyone not in our clan.

“When I came to that epiphany, I started wondering why I cared so much about canon. Was it just because I loved the story so much? Was it because I was clinging to the comfort provided to me by an outlined future? Or was it due to the textbook answer that preserving canon was necessary to save the world from Kaguya, Madara, and the like? In the end, I decided it was a little bit of all three, so I broke down each reason one by one.

“I loved the story, but that didn’t mean I had to live it. Reliving it would be like rereading the manga albeit more like an interactive novel. I didn’t need to go through the story on my own, I’ve already picked apart every inch of the story. As for the comfort my knowledge of the future brought me, well, like I already said, I can get over it. Most people don’t have that comfort. 

“That just left me with the worry that the change endangered the world. I didn’t have a solution to that problem until we got back to the compound, and I heard all the arguments for the clan to get more involved in the world. We, and by we I mean the whole clan in this case, we are the ones that ruined canon. It’s up to us to limit the damage as much as possible. We have to stop the enemies.”

Elyse and Isamu sat in a stunned silence as Diane finished baring her soul to him. Elyse could hardly believe her ears. Diane was one of the last people she expected to promote further altering canon. “Diane, are you sure this is what you want?” Elyse had to make sure.

Diane nodded vigorously. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

“You should tell the crowd outside everything you just told us,” Isamu said once he broke out of the stupor. “I think you’ll be able to sway some people with her words.”

Diane shook her head. “No. Think about it. How long did it take the clan to make a decision after we all thought Sasuke ate breakfast? If we leave a decision this big to the clan, we could end up sitting around doing nothing for years. It’s up to us, the three of us and whoever else we can get that might want to take up this mission.”

Elyse suddenly found it hard to breathe. Despite her irritation with the clan for not preventing some of the more undesirable canon events, Elyse had never considered putting a stop to them herself. Maybe she had been a hypocrite the entirety of her second life. “We’re just genin. What can we do?” Elyse felt ashamed of herself, but she didn’t want to die this time. 

“We’re at least high chunin level,” Diane disputed. “And we know our enemies’ weaknesses maybe better than they do themselves. We can do this.”

Elyse took a deep breath. This was what she wanted the whole time, for someone to stop the atrocities they knew were coming. She couldn’t back out when it was her that had to risk her life. “Ok. I’m in, but we’re asking Allen to join us. I’d feel a thousand times better about this if we had an S rank ninja on our team.”

Diane furrowed her brows. “Who the hell is Allen?”

“That’s the name Kisame goes by now. It’s his old name,” Elyse explained. Diane’s answering expression could only be described as unnerved.

“That’s… strange. Will he want to go with us?” Elyse shrugged. She knew Allen just wanted to be a chef, but he also would continue to get pestered by the clan for as long as he stayed in the compound. Maybe they could offer Allen a position as chef for the team.

“What about you?” Diane directed her question at Isamu who hadn’t thrown in his support yet. “Are you coming with us?”

“Well, I’m certainly not staying here while you two go gallivanting off to do whatever,” Isamu said. “But if Elyse can choose someone to ask to go with us then I am too. I want to ask Ryuu to join us.”

“Ryuu?” Elyse asked incredulously. “The son of the man who preaches the sanctity of canon to children for a profession? The son of the man that cares more about canon than anyone else in a clan full of people obsessed with canon?”

“That’s the one,” Isamu confirmed.

“Sure. I highly doubt he’ll want to go, but we should at least ask our sensei,” Diane agreed before Elyse could express her disapproval further. “Let’s go now.”

Convincing Allen to go with them was easy especially after Elyse offered to let him be the chef of the trip. “I haven’t gotten to cook for others in so long,” Allen said wistfully. “And it will be nice to get away from the barrage of questions about the Akatsuki.

Ryuu was even easier much to Elyse’s and Diane’s surprise. As soon as Diane explained her plan to him, he said, “Ok. I’m in.”

“You know you won’t get paid for this, right?” Elyse asked.

Ryuu chuckled. “Yes, I do know that.” 

“But what about your dad?” Elyse added. “You’ll be going against everything he teaches.”

“Consider it a bit of teenage rebellion,” Ryuu said.

“You’re almost 40,” Diane said flatly in a way that made Elyse feel like the real Diane was back.

“Midlife crisis then,” Ryuu said dismissively. “So, shall we go then? While everyone’s distracted by the clan meeting? Or should we wait to say our goodbyes?”

“I’d rather leave Suna than later,” Isamu answered quickly. Diane groaned loudly accompanied by a groan from Allen. Elyse laughed loudly at their displeasure.

“Ok!” she said a bit more giddy than she had felt just moments before. “Let’s get this show on the road.” 

Under the cover of the early evening sun, the five left the compound first then the gates of Suna to take on canon head on.


	5. Chapter 5

“So Orochimaru finally gave Sasuke the curse seal,”  Elyse informed the group as she set aside the dish she had just finished her meal off of.  Allen could make a mean blackened chicken, that was for sure.

Diane swallowed a piece of chicken.  “We know. Ryuu heard from the woman with the collection of Bingo Books and told us all while you were out looking for a blacksmith.”

Elyse threw up her arms.  “And none of you thought to tell me that when I got back?”

“We were eating.  And you didn’t tell us until now either,”  Isamu pointed out.

“That’s cause I was still shellshocked by finding that this village doesn’t have a single blacksmith in it.  It’s a ninja village, but there’s no blacksmith. How does that make any sense? How am I supposed to replenish my supplies?”

“Why would you need to replenish your supplies?  We haven’t done anything yet.”

Elyse frowned at Isamu.  “That’s not the point. I might need to replenish my supplies if we do get into a fight.  Besides, my supplies aren’t the underlying issue. This is a ninja village without a blacksmith.  I don’t think I can emphasize that enough. How are they supposed to supply themselves?”

“Yeah, that doesn’t make sense.  You can’t have a ninja village without weapons,”  Diane agreed reaching for her chain that sat beside her.

“Maybe they can.  Maybe none of the ninja here use weapons.  Maybe they just rely on jutsu instead,” Isamu suggested.

“Well, that’s just senseless,”  Elyse said dismissively. “Kunai are incredibly useful for a variety of techniques.  They can be used for traps, distraction, straight attack, and for pinning objects down.”

 “I didn’t say it was a good idea,”  Isamu defended.

“Maybe it’s a ploy,”  Allen piped up. “They could have an underground network of blacksmiths that they keep secret from outsiders.  That way they can catch us by surprise when they bring out weapons in a fight.”  
Elyse considered the idea.  “I don’t think that would give them much of an advantage at all.  How many ninja are going to go into a fight without expecting weapons whether the village has a blacksmith or not?”

“Oooo, I know,”  Diane said excitedly.  “The blacksmiths all went on strike to demand better wages and fairer hours.”

“Could be,”  Elyse considered.  “But then I think the shops would still be up.”

“Maybe they burned the shops down as part of the protest,”  Diane offered. 

“That sounds a little excessive and perhaps counterproductive too.  They’d have to spend the increase of their wages on building new shops.”

“I think you guys are missing one obvious problem with this theory,”  Isamu interjected. Diane and Elyse looked at him questioningly. “Blacksmiths aren’t generally paid wages around here.  They set up their own shop and earn whatever they get by selling their product.”

Right.  Elyse should have thought of that.  “Then they could be on strike to demand that people pay more for the weapons,”  Diane said refusing to give up.

“No.  The people around here are probably part of a cult that believes that steel is too artificial for battle.  They only use the most natural and pure resources like chakra,” Allen invented. 

“Actually,”  Ryuu spoke up having momentarily set his chicken aside.  “The Land of River has had a steel shortage for the past 100 years.  The iron sources nearby are tapped out, and the country doesn’t have enough goods to trade for an adequate supply.  All the blacksmiths went out of business when the steel shortage started, and there still isn’t enough for a revival of the job.  It’s actually one of the many staggering problems that leave this country with a failing economy.”

Four pairs of eyes blinked at him.  Elyse clapped her hands together. “Alright, then.  Mystery solved. You could have spoken up earlier and saved us all the speculation, Ryuu,”  Elyse scolded.

Ryuu shrugged.  “I was hoping one of you knew the answer, so I didn’t have to say anything.”

“Stop being so lazy,”  Diane groaned.

“It’s not laziness, it’s apathy.  I didn’t care enough to answer until I realized the conversation would continue on forever unless I did.”

“Whatever,”  Diane grumbled.

“Anyways, back to the topic at hand,”  Elyse said. There was no point in trying to change who Ryuu was.  “That particular part of canon happened a bit later than in the manga, but it still happened.  Are you sure you’re still in on this, Diane?”

“Yup,”  Diane said firmly.  “I made up my mind and I’m sticking to it.  Don’t forget that this whole thing was my idea.”

“As if I could,”  Elyse muttered. Diane went back and forth between asking if she was crazy for coming up with the idea and preening about what a great idea it was.

The group was only a couple weeks into their self given mission.  They’d travelled out of Suna to Tanigakure and settled there. As they knew both from the manga and from Allen’s past involvement with Akatsuki, an Akatsuki hideout was located not too far from the village.  They planned to stop in Tani for supplies and rest before heading over to the hideout and rigging the place with explosives. It probably wouldn’t kill any S rank ninja, but it amused Elyse and Isamu greatly to imagine the reaction when Akatsuki realized one of their hideouts had been discovered and filled with traps.  The other members of the group indulged the two in this case purely because they didn’t know where else to start.

Neither the information from the manga nor the intelligence Allen had from being a former member provided the group with the locations of the people they needed to take down.  What Allen did have were the locations of all the Akatsuki hideouts. “Maybe we should just start by rigging each of the hideouts with explosives,” Elyse suggested. “If we successfully drive them out of hiding, it will be easier to find them.”

“And what happens when the Akatsuki catches on to what we’re doing and sets up traps of their own for us?”  Diane asked not pleased with how this was going. She thought they’d just be able to march up to Pein, take him out, and move on to the next guy.  She was still a little naive and hadn’t thought of the logistics of the task. At least, she started thinking more carefully now.

“Then we pull a Natrin’s Barrow on them,”  Elyse decided as she thought back to one of her favorite book series from Earth.  “We make them think that we’re going to play along and fall into their trap, and then we hit them with a devastating long distance jutsu before they can realize it.”

“What jutsu?  You can’t just say a jutsu.  You actually have to have one in mind.”

“I’ll think of one,”  Elyse insisted. “It’d be easier if we could just use balefire like Rand did.”

“What is balefire and who’s Rand?”  Isamu asked with a frown. “Are you making another obscure reference?”

“Baseball isn’t obscure.  Although, I guess  _ The Wheel of Time  _ might be a bit obscure,”  Elyse admitted.

“Do people actually watch baseball?”  Allen asked. Elyse groaned and smacked her forehead repeatedly into her folded forearms.  It was getting so old.

“I do.  And so do plenty of other people.  You know what, I’m just never going to bring up baseball ever again.  It’s not worth it,” Elyse announced.

“Thank God,”  Diane sighed. Elyse tossed a crumpled up napkin at her which she dodged.

“So… Explosives?  Akatsuki hideout? Who’s up for it?”  Elyse asked, jumping up and setting her plate in the sink.  Isamu raised his hand lazily as Diane and Allen stared at Elyse, chewing their chicken.  Ryuu didn’t react at all.

Diane swallowed her mouthful.  “Right now? Shouldn’t we come up with some sort of plan first?”

“We do have a plan.  Set up a bunch of traps,”  Elyse said. Diane didn’t look satisfied with that.  “Come on. No one’s going to be there. Probably. Now’s as good a time as any.”  
Diane sighed.  “Fine. Let’s go then.”  She set her dish on top of Elyse’s in the sink, and Isamu followed with his dish afterwards.  

Allen eyed the sink warily.  “You guys aren’t pawning the dishes off on me again.  I cook all the time. I shouldn’t have to wash the dishes too.”

“You want to cook.  Doing something you want to do doesn’t get you out of dishes.  The rule is that the first person that can’t handle the pile of dishes in the sink anymore has to wash them,”  Diane lectured.

“That rule is ridiculous,”  Allen protested. “I end up washing the dishes every time because the four of you wouldn’t care if the whole room was covered in dishes.”

Elyse patted Allen’s back comfortingly.  “Learn to handle filth better. It’s a skill.”

“I’m not washing the dishes this time,”  Allen muttered. “I’m just going to leave them until mold starts to grow.  One of you has to give in eventually.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it,”  Ryuu warned as he stood up and added his dish to the pile.  “I’m going to bed.”

“What about setting up traps in the hideout?”  Diane asked. “Don’t tell me you’re going to skip out on another mission.”

“This isn’t a mission, and I’ve never skipped out on a mission.”

“What about the escort mission to Rain when you hid out the whole time in the caravan?”

“I had to watch the supplies to make sure no one tried to take it.”

“And what about the artifact retrieval mission in that temple in that village on the border of the Land of Wind and the Land of Rivers?”  Elyse added.

“I had to watch outside to make sure you hadn’t alerted the guards.”  
“But what about the mission catching the thief in Suna?”  Isamu contributed.

“Oh, that one.  I didn’t want to do that mission,”  Ryuu admitted. “And I don’t want to pointlessly fill the Akatsuki hideout with traps.”

“It’s not pointless.  It’s fun,” Elyse said before turning to Allen who was still narrowing his eyes at the dishes in the sink.  “You’re coming, right?”

Allen tore his gaze from the dishes.  “Of course. There’s a spice rack in that hideout I would love to have.”

Diane snapped her fingers.  “That’s right! We can loot the place too!  OK, I’m more on board with this now.”

Unfortunately for Diane, the hideout didn’t have much in the way of goods to loot.  It was mostly bare other than a scattering of scant furniture. Allen’s new spice rack was one of the only non-furniture items in the whole place, oddly enough.  “Sasori put one in every hideout we have. He says he can’t stand bland food,” Allen explained.

“Isn’t he a puppet?  Can he even taste food?”  Elyse asked.

Allen shrugged.  “I never asked because I wasn’t supposed to know that.  It was probably just a ruse to convince people he was still human.”

“Sounds like a waste of spice,”  Isamu said as he triggered the fridge to shoot shuriken at whoever opened it next.  “We can add that to the list of reasons to take down Sasori.” Besides trying to figure out where the people they wanted to go after were for the last couple of weeks, the group had many discussions over who they should actually go after.  For instance, Diane was completely against going after Sasori and Deidara.

“That’s still not a good enough reason,”  Diane said to Isamu as she rummaged through the empty drawers in the kitchen.  “Once we take down the big guys in the Akatsuki, Sasori won’t be a significant threat.  It’s not like he’s still going to go after dangerous demon containers when Akatsuki’s disbanded.  He’ll probably just go off and do puppet things.”

“What  _ are _ puppet things?”  Elyse asked. “Cause in this world, I’m pretty sure puppet things involve shooting weapons at people and trying to crush their bones and other similarly murderous activities which seems like a perfectly good reason to stop Sasori.”

Diane laughed.  “Of course not. We can’t stop every single person that commits murder.  That’s like every single ninja. We’re only supposed to stop the people that want to take over the world.”

“That’s like every single ninja,”  Elyse repeated. “Or at least fifty percent according to the last poll the Nintendo council took.”

“Well, we’re limiting our efforts to those that actually have some sort of a chance which significantly lowers that number.  One puppet man isn’t going to take over the world.”

“Forget it.  We’ll go after the more dangerous characters first anyways, so we don’t need to have this conversation until later.”

“And when we do have that conversation, let’s not forget that Sasori apparently spices his food even though he doesn’t have taste buds,”  Isamu added.

“I’ll keep that in mind,”  Diane said drily. She turned to Allen.  “So what’s the deal with this place? Where does the Akatsuki keep its valuables?”

Allen chuckled.  “Not here. None of the Akatsuki would keep their valuables in reach of the other members of the Akatsuki.”

“What about weapons?  Scrolls? One of those cloaks with the clouds on them?  Anything?” Diane pressed.

Allen shook his head.  “Probably not, but you can look around if you want.”  Suddenly, his eyes lit up. “Ah, I know. Kakuzu collects forehead protectors.  I usually see one or two somewhere in every hideout.”

Rubbing her chin thoughtfully, Diane said,  “A different forehead protector can be sort of useful.  It can help with a disguise, I guess.”

“Why does he collect forehead protectors?”  Elyse asked furrowing her brow. That was a strange hobby.

“He says he can sell foreign headbands for a hefty price on the black market.  Although, I don’t know why he leaves some behind in the hideouts then.” Allen shrugged again.

Elyse frowned at him.  “You really don’t know much about your own former organization do you?”

“Missing nin generally don’t like questions very much, so I didn’t ask.  And they don’t share a lot of information voluntarily. Really, most of what I know about each of the members, even Itachi, I learned from the manga,”  Allen mused with a slight smile.

“So much for you being a source on the enemy,”  Diane said. “I’m going to go look for Kakuzu’s headbands.”

Elyse watched Diane dart off before nudging Isamu.  “Want to go set up traps in that big cave room? There’s a lot of room for traps.”

Isamu nodded eagerly.  “I actually came up with a trap specifically for that room.  You know those traps in movies where the walls keep moving closer and closer together?  I figured we could do something like that except put explosives all around the room instead and trigger them all at once whenever someone walks into the room.”

“I like that idea.  It’s consistent, but what does that have to do with the traps in the movies?”

“Nothing.  I just wanted to make you think we were going to put a different kind of trap in this room for a second,”  Isamu confessed.

“Ah.”  Elyse had no problem with that.  She preferred explosives to all other traps anyways.  Besides, that ensured that the Akatsuki hideout would be completely destroyed after someone set off all the traps.

A thousand explosive tags later, give or take, Elyse and Isamu completed their objective.  Giving Isamu a huge grin, Elyse held up her hand for a high five which he returned. She only wished she could be around to see the resulting blast and rubble from the trap they created. 


	6. Chapter 6

When Isamu and Elyse regrouped with the other two, they were met with a pile of headbands and a frowning Diane perusing through them.  “What’s the matter? You realized that you don’t really want a bunch of useless headbands?” Elyse asked referring to the unsatisfied expression on her teammates face.

“I only sort of wanted them in the first place, but that’s not the problem.  So many of these symbols are unrecognizable. Check this one out.” Diane held up a headband with a depiction of a bunny.  “I don’t remember ever seeing a headband like this.” She turned the band around to face her and gave it a fond smile. “It is super adorable though.  I think I’ll keep this one, at least.”

“Wait, let me see that.”  Elyse reached over and plucked the headband from Diane’s hand.  She moved the sketch closer to her face to examine it more thoroughly.  “Ok. That is undeniably a cute bunny rabbit. What kind of ninja village would use this as their symbol?”

“Maybe Kakuzu started making his own headbands and that was one of his own,”  Isamu suggested as he held up a headband he’d just picked out of the pile. The symbol showing on that plate was a crude drawing of what looked like the Gamecube symbol.  “He could be one of us.”

“If he is he’s a very good actor,”  Allen muttered, taking the band from Isamu.

“You successfully acted like Kisame,”  Diane pointed out.

“I highly doubt that Kakuzu made a bunch of headbands with his own brand,” Elyse scoffed, tossing the bunny rabbit  one back to Diane who immediately started wrapping it around her head. Elyse sighed, but decided to address that particular action later.  “Clearly, he just collected a lot of rare, probably extinct, ones.”

“That does seem more likely,”  Allen agreed. “But where did this one come from then?”  He held up the headband to the group.

Diane frowned at it.  “Ok. What is that? Is this another one of those things I’d have to be reincarnated to get, because I’m getting sick of that.”

Elyse stared at her.  “Diane, our clan is called the Nintendo clan.  Surely, you’ve seen a Gamecube logo before.” When Diane shook her head, Elyse just shrugged.  Well, it’s not like the symbol was actually important or a prominent figure in the clan. “Never mind.  It’s not important. I do, however, know exactly who made a headband like that. In Fusajiro Yamauchi’s memoirs, I read that their original plan for the imprint on our headbands was the Nintendo logo.  They made a few initially, but soon ditched that idea for the triforce.”

“A few?  How many is a few?”  Allen’s sharp eyes bore into Elyse’s own letting her know that he was on the same page as her.

“Three.  One for himself, one for Naka Osahu, and one for Margaret Shell, the third member of the Nintendo clan.  Not that the clan was really more than an idea at the time.”

“So then how did Kakuzu get ahold of one of these?”  Isamu mused.  
“I’d like to know that as well,” Elyse said.  “According to the memoirs, the headbands have been locked in the clan historical records ever since.  Obviously that could have changed in between Fusajiro writing his memoirs and now, but it doesn’t seem like something Kakuzu would reasonably get his hands on.”

“Maybe he is one of us.  That would explain how he got access to these.”  Despite his words, Allen sounded doubtful.

“Or someone else took it and Kakuzu got it from them,”  Elyse suggested.

“Or,”  Isamu started from beside the pile of headbands.  “Kakuzu  _ was _ part of our clan.  Have you looked through all of these, Diane?  Because I found a couple more of interest to us.”

The other three rushed over to where he stood.  “Which ones?” Diane asked. Isamu pointed to two headbands on the outside of the pile which he had apparently found and dug out during the conversation.  The first one showed a dollar sign and the second one had a representation of a cannon inside a kind of shield.

“What’s that second one supposed to be?”  Elyse asked.

Diane laughed happily.  “Finally, I’m not the only one out of the loop.”

“It’s Arsenal,”  Isamu said as if it were obvious.  Elyse stared back blankly. Isamu turned to Allen in appeal.  Allen shrugged back. “The football team,” Isamu added.

Elyse nodded.  “Ah, soccer. Ok.  So that’s three definite headbands he had with logos from our world.  Two of which none of us have ever seen or heard of. That’s definitely odd.”

“Is it?”  Diane asked gesturing to the pile of headbands.  “I mean, look at this collection. With how many he had, it’s not so strange that he would have headbands we never heard of or ones that relate to our world.”

Elyse shook her head.  “Any symbol from our world would stand out to our clan and any reincarnated person.  I find it hard to believe that Kakuzu just stumbled across headbands that the Nintendo clan never had a clue about.”

“Maybe the Nintendo clan has heard about them.  We can ask Ryuu what he knows about these,” Diane said. 

Isamu shrugged.  “Sure. Why not?” .

“Alright.  Let’s grab those three headbands and get out before someone from Akatsuki decides to show up.”  Elyse snatched up the two headbands as she spoke.

“No one from Akatsuki is going to show up,”  Allen assured. “We generally prefer to use our own personal hideouts.”  Elyse sighed. The Akatsuki’s personal hideouts were a sore spot since Allen had no idea where any of the other members’ hideouts were.

“Ok.  Let’s go,” she said.

Before they could leave, Diane grabbed onto Elyse’s and Isamu’s arms.  “Not so fast. There’s still this whole pile of other headbands that I want.  They could be important too. You never know.”

Elyse and Isamu grumbled, but helped Diane carry the rest of the collection.  

A few days later, Diane stumbled into their temporary settlement lugging a few large boxes that she set down on the table carefully.  “There! That should solve it,” she announced triumphantly, putting her hands on her hips as she looked down on the boxes with a proud smile.  Isamu glanced over at the boxes before shrugging to himself and going back to jotting notes about something Elyse couldn’t make heads or tails of, mostly due to Isamu’s poor handwriting.  Elyse watched as Allen frowned, walked over to the boxes, and cut the top box open with his giant sword.

“Hey!  Watch it!”  Diane protested.  “You’ll break them.”  Ah. Elyse grinned. She knew what was in the boxes now.

“Plates!”  Allen exclaimed.  “You bought new plates?”

“And glasses and bowls too,”  Diane added cheerfully. “I figured I’d just buy clean dishes to replace the dirty ones.  Luckily, we still have enough clean silverware for now. We can buy more when we run out.”  
“Perfect solution,” Elyse said complementarily.  

“No.  No, it’s not,”  Allen disagreed firmly, still staring at the box of opened, new dishes with a frown.  “None of us are working right now. I ran from my village years ago and from my new line of work more recently, and the four of you had to run from your village to come here.  We’re not making any money here, and we can’t go about wasting our funds on dishes when we have perfectly good dishes already.”

Elyse, Diane, and Isamu all looked over at the sink where the dirty dishes spilled out over the counter.  The rest of the dirty dishes had been placed on the floor in front of the sink. “What perfectly good dishes?”  Diane asked.

“Yeah, all we have are dirty ones,”  Isamu complained.

“Just wash them,”  Allen implored. The other three exchange looks.

“Um, I’m actually really busy,”  Diane started before pausing and scrunching up her forehead in thought.  Suddenly she nodded. “Yes, really busy. I still haven’t figured out all the symbols on Kakuzu’s headband collection.  So… As you can see, I don’t have time for washing dishes.”

“It took you longer to go buy new ones,”  Allen muttered. Diane pretended she hadn’t heard.

“Look, Allen,”  Elyse said. “Just wash the dishes yourself if they bug you so much.”

“That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“Yes,”  the other three said together. 

Allen nodded to himself.  “Alright. New plan.” Allen lifted his sword  once more and smashed it down on the tower of boxes.

“Oh, come on now,”  Diane groaned. “Now  _ that’s  _ a waste of money.”

“I don’t care.  I’m determined to get you guys to do dishes.”

The conversation halted as Ryuu entered the room holding a couple large boxes in his arms.  “I solved the dish quandary,” he said setting the boxes down at his feet. “Don’t say I never did anything for the team.”

Allen glared down at the new boxes balefully.  “I’d ask if that’s what I think it is, but I know better by now.  Of course it is. Whatever. I give up. Buy new dishes every time we run out of clean ones.  Just don’t use any of my funds.” With that he stalked out of the room.

“Well, that was fun,”  Diane said smirking in the direction Allen had gone.

“Yeah,”  Elyse said slowly.  “We should probably think of the next step towards attacking the Akatsuki.  We’re becoming strange in our idleness.” 

“Yes, we should,”  Ryuu agreed. “But first, I think what I have in these boxes might be of interest to you.”

Glancing at the boxes, Elyse nodded.  “Of course, we’re happy about having new and clean plates, but that’s not exactly a pressing issue at the moment.”

Ryuu scratched his head and opened one of the boxes he brought.  He pulled out a thick scroll and waved it at his team. “What new, clean plates?  I’m talking about all these files I just gathered. Legally, in case anyone starts asking around.”

“If you have to clarify, it probably wasn’t legal,”  Elyse said folding her arms. “What’s in those scrolls?”

“Don’t contradict your sensei,”  Ryuu scolded inducing eyerolls from two of his three students.  Then, he waved the scroll in his hand again. “These are records of every headband ever used as known by Tanigakure.  We might be able to find some information about some of those headbands you brought back and bombarded me with.”

Diane rubbed her hands together.  “Excellent. Maybe we could find out where the bunny headbands were used.”

“Or, you know, the ones that relate to the old world,”  Elyse said pointedly.

“Oh yeah.  That too.”

Shaking her head, Elyse reached into one of the boxes Ryuu brought in before pausing suddenly and glancing up at Ryuu.  “Wait a second. Why did you say you solved the dish quandary on the way in?”

Ryuu smiled proudly.  “Glad you asked. As I was walking back here, I came to the realization that I am your sensei and superior and, as such, I have the power to give you orders as you are all still genin.  Therefore, I’m changing the rules of who has to do the dishes. Instead of waiting for whoever can’t stand the clutter first, I order the three of you to do the dishes, so that we have clean ones to use.”

The unimpressed expressions on the faces of his team made it clear that it wouldn’t be as easy as a simple order from their sensei.  “You can’t just change the rules whenever you want,” Diane protested. 

“I’m your sensei, so I can,”  Ryuu repeated.

“Actually, according to village and clan law, you can only give us orders that pertain to our training or any missions we’re on,”  Elyse pointed out satisfactorily. “So, the dish rule is up to a democratic vote, and we already voted on that.”

“This relates to your training and the mission that were on.  If you die of starvation because you don’t have any clean plates to eat off of, that ruins the mission and ends your training.”

After a pause, Elyse laughed.  “That… is the biggest stretch I ever heard.”

“Not to mention that this isn’t an actual mission,”  Isamu piped up. “Technically, we are missing nin. We ran from our village.”

Diane nodded emphatically.  “That’s true. And that means were not genin anymore, and you’re not our sensei.  You don’t have the right to give us any orders.”

“Damn, I was hoping you wouldn’t notice,” Ryuu mumbled.  “Alright. Never mind that. We’ll just buy new plates or something.”

Diane glanced regretfully at the plates Allen had smashed.  She sighed. “Allen’s right. Eventually, we’ll run out of money.”

“Sooo, theft?” Elyse raised her eyebrows questioningly at the others as she asked.

Appalled, Diane gaped at Elyse.  “What? No! We can’t steal plates.  Right, Ryuu?” She looked in appeal at Ryuu who just shrugged and sat down at the table to look over a scroll.

“Just a joke, of course,” Elyse assured Diane.  “Let’s look into these headband symbols.” As she grabbed a scroll, Elyse looked over at Isamu sending him a significant look.  He shrugged back at her halfheartedly. Good enough. Elyse figured she could turn that shrug into an Isamu that was on board with her plan of plate theft.

For a while, the team poured over the many scrolls Ryuu had gathered, piping up whenever one of them came across something they found interesting.  That person was inevitably Diane in every instance, considering she found almost all of what she found interesting enough to comment on. As for herself, Elyse didn’t come across any information she wanted to share until she finished looking through her portion of the scrolls and started picking through the scrolls Ryuu had already gone through and discarded.  On the fifth scroll, the symbol on the top of the page was just two circles, one smaller than the other, a distance from each other. The symbol in itself didn’t mean anything of significance to Elyse. It was the brief description of the person that used that symbol that grabbed Elyse’s attention.

 According to the description, only one headband of its kind was known to Tani.  The person that wore the headband was named Ai. Besides her name, the paper had only one sentence to describe Ai, “Anyone that knew of Ai believed her to be crazy and said that she insisted she was in a story.”  Not much could be determined from that one sentence; it didn’t say anything about the story that Ai believed she was in, but Elyse had a feeling. 

When Elyse pointed out the paper to her teammates, Diane jumped up and ran to her room.  She came back holding a headband with the same symbol as the one on Ai’s paper. “Look! Kakuzu had that one too.”

Elyse stared back at the headband feeling a bit perturbed.  “So that’s four rare headbands related to our world that Kakuzu had in his collection.  That certainly doesn’t feel like a coincidence.”

“It’s probably not,”  Isamu said. “I’m telling you, Kakuzu was probably reincarnated.”

“Probably,”  Elyse agreed.  “Where did Allen go?  We should ask him everything he knows about Kakuzu.”

“We did.  He knew practically nothing about him just like he knew practically nothing about the rest of his own organization,”  Diane complained.

“Hey!  I knew plenty!”  a voice shouted from outside.

“Well, if you’re in your room listening to us just get in here and help us out already,” Diane said exasperatedly. 

A grumbling Allen made his way to the entrance of the kitchen.  “You know-” Allen’s words were cut off as the ground shook violently throwing him to the floor.  The other three tumbled off their chairs as scrolls flew off the table, the boxes of already broken dishes crashed to the floor, and the ceiling lamp fell onto the table destroying it and setting it ablaze.

“Quick! Put out the fire!”  Allen yelled as he scrambled up to his feet.  From his position on his back, Isamu lazily used a water jutsu to put out the fire with water from the faucet.

“Done,” he said and stood up.  

Dusting herself off, Elyse gazed around suspiciously to try and determine if the ground was going to shake again.  “What the hell was that? A five second earthquake?”

Diane jumped up to her feet, chain in hand, ready to be lashed out at anyone who dared attack her.  “Could be an enemy. It felt like an explosion.”

“It did feel like an explosion,”  Ryuu agreed as he stood up and looked out the window.  “And there is definitely a fire in that direction.”

“Is that so?”  Elyse asked catching Isamu’s eye.  That was in the direction of the Akatsuki hideout they had rigged up just a few days earlier.  


End file.
